Lift gates that decide without a signal

A venue door admits once and has signal, so it asks and fails closed. A lift gate admits all day and has none, so it decides on the device and fails open — a lift queue stopped by a network outage is a mountain of angry people and a safety issue, and the worst case of letting one bad pass through is one free ride.

Each scan records which gate saw which pass and when. A pass that reads at two lifts eleven minutes and four miles apart did not travel between them, so the pattern surfaces for a human at the base to look into. Impossible travel is evidence, not a verdict — the software flags it and never accuses a skier at the gate.

The proximity card in a pocket is read by the gate; there is nothing on a screen for anyone to photograph and forward. Printed QR handles the day-ticket and the phone that died in the cold, and the same pass carries both.