By Melissa Buckley, Fort Leonard Wood Public Affairs Office
FORT LEONARD WOOD, Mo. (September 21, 2023) — A newer, faster, smarter automated installation entry system being installed at all of Fort Leonard Wood’s access locations is scheduled to “go live” early next month.
According to Rick Vise, Directorate of Emergency Services Security Operations chief, the new system is commonly known as the Automated Installation Entry version 3, or AIE 3, and installation, training and testing is scheduled to be complete by Oct. 2.
With thousands of visitors arriving here each week for family days and graduations, the new system has features to help speed up the process of safely and securely scanning and validating identification, including an online visitor’s pass request system upgrade, said Lt. Col. Erin Fritzler, Fort Leonard Wood’s Provost Marshal and DES director.
“This should facilitate visitors for our primary mission with the family days and graduations,” Fritzler said. “It really will be an infinitely more capable system.”
Vise said in the last two weeks of August, there were eight family days and graduation events with about 127,000 visitors counted. When there are that many people at the gates, every second counts. Currently, identification cards that are new to the system can take up to 40 seconds to be registered. With AIE 3, Vise said that time could be down to 10 seconds.
Fritzler said the new system should take about a minute off the current 1.5 to 2 minutes per vehicle the average visitor spends with a gate guard.
In addition to speed, Fritzler said the new system will also enhance security on post because, “our guards will have more information at the point of scanning.”
Forney Army Airfield/Waynesville-St. Robert Regional Airport is also getting AIE 3, Vise said.
“We will have the same capabilities at the airfield as at our access control points. The guard will be able to scan all commercial passengers and issue an AIE pass to all non-Department of Defense credentialed persons. We expect this will expedite processing passes for all passengers,” Vise said.
Fritzler said all Army installations will eventually get this upgrade. She also noted the unusable black pedestals, or self-scanning kiosks, as some people refer to them, at the gates are being removed during this upgrade.
In addition to the new system, Vise said there are other ways people trying to access post can help expediate the process, such as having the driver’s side front and rear windows rolled down before approaching the gate guard and having the driver’s license and identification cards for the rest of the adults in the vehicle ready to be scanned.
More information about accessing Fort Leonard Wood can be found on the installation’s visitors access web page.
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About Fort Leonard Wood
Fort Leonard Wood is a thriving and prosperous installation that has evolved from a small basic training post more than 80 years ago to a premier Army Center of Excellence that trains nearly 80,000 military and civilians each year.
Fort Leonard Wood is home to the U.S Army Maneuver Support Center of Excellence and three U.S. Army schools: the U.S. Army Engineer School; U.S. Army Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear School; and the U.S. Army Military Police School. In addition to training engineer, CBRN and military police specialties for the Army, Fort Leonard Wood also provides gender-integrated in-processing and Basic Combat Training for new Soldiers.