Businesswoman is on a roll with hi-tech luggage-cart concession contract at LAX.

Businesswoman is on a roll with hi-tech luggage-cart concession contract at LAX

E-Z Roller founder and President Nancy K. Immel has this deep-seated desire to communicate with luggage-cart vending machines.

Her firm has had the luggage-cart concession at Los Angeles International Airport since November 1990, and Immel wants to keep track of the carts' condition and monitor how many are being rented at any one time.

Now, with the help of a computer tracking system, to be installed at LAX before summer, luggage carts can and will be monitored more carefully.

"It will give us immediate notification in case (the luggage cart) is being tampered with," Immel said. "It will also free up some personnel time."

Any time a cart is being meddled with, computer chips placed within the cart will signal sensors on a computer in E-Z Roller's office at the airport, and the computer will alert an employee to the interference.

According to Immel, the wireless modem tracking system will cost $3,000 to $4,000 per machine. There will be a computer in the company's office and sensors in each of the carts' vending machines.

E-Z Roller, a St. Paul, Minn.-based firm that was awarded a five-year contract with the Los Angeles Department of Airports in July 1990, gives the carts free to international travelers but charges domestic travelers $1 with a 25 cent refund when the carts are returned to a vending machine.

The new computer system to be installed around June 1.

The system also will track how many carts are at a vending machine at a given time.

"All we know (now) is cart one, two, three, four (or) five is rented," Immel said.

Immel's use of technology for the company is in order to make sure E-Z Roller's contract with the airport is renewed in five years.

"We intend to be here for 20 years. We intend to keep state-of-the-art equipment," she said.

PHOTO : Nancy Immel: Being awarded airport concession by Mayor Tom Bradley last year