Next time when you see a gantry and wonder why it looks so familiar, you might be looking at what used to be a SafeEntry gantry.
With the COVID-19 restrictions greatly relaxed since 26 April, most places do not require individuals to check-in via SafeEntry.
You might have also noticed that many SafeEntry gantries located in areas such as shopping malls have also been taken down.
Hence, companies that have rented SafeEntry gantries to various locations have announced that they will be repurposing the gantries for other uses such as gantries which have facial recognition or card-scanning functions.
Such gantries can still be used to aid the fight against COVID-19 in their own ways, such as through security checks and managing the maximum capacity of venues.
MQuest, a local technology company, is amongst the companies that have been manufacturing SafeEntry gantries.
Since October 2020, the firm has manufactured over 400 SafeEntry gantries, with most of them being rented to shopping malls, schools, religious places of worship and office amongst other places.
When interviewed by Lianhe Zaobao, MQuest’s Managing Director, surnamed Lim, mentioned that the company has already asked those who have rented SafeEntry gantries from them to return the gantries.
Currently, they have around 20 gantries in their possession, and slight modifications can be done to them in order for them to be used for other purposes.
Lim touched on how different clients have different needs for their gantries, such as facial recognition or tallying of the number of attendees at an event, which will prompt the firm to carry out simple changes to the preexisting SafeEntry software.
SafeEntry Gantries Cost Up to $12,000
Another company, MetaMind Technologies, began manufacturing SafeEntry gantries at the end of last year.
It managed to secure around ten clients, and has since received two gantries from clients who have returned them.
The company also mentioned that it will be altering the gantries to fit the needs of crowd control for office buildings and large-scale events.
Depending on the model, a SafeEntry gantry manufactured by the company costs anywhere from $6,000 to $12,000.
In order to increase its sales, the company also started carrying out deals via web-based consumer-to-consumer and business-to-consumer application Carousell.
Xiao Huijuan, MetaMind Technologies’ Executive Director, told Zaobao that the company had hoped to reach out to more potential clients through Carousell.
And the move by the company worked; a substantial number of clients actually approached the firm to enquire about the gantries after noticing them on Carousell.
These clients included shopping malls and hostels.
She also brought up how the company predicted that SafeEntry gantries would not be a permanent fixture in the fight against COVID-19 when they first began producing the gantries.
Hence, they only invested funds to manufacture the gantries when clients decided to rent gantries from them, preventing a case of stockpiling within the company.
The spokesperson of Far East Organisation, a real estate company, also told Zaobao that they will likely remove the SafeEntry gantries placed at the shopping malls owned by the corporation
The company also mentioned that it will open up the entrances that were closed previously due to the SafeEntry measures, and that it will continue to observe the various safe management measures implemented by the Government.
Frasers Property Retail’s spokesperson also echoed similar sentiments.
Featured Image: Lianhe Zaobao