The high-tech experimental fast-track equipment at the Bermuda Airport works only "sometimes'', say several of the people who use it.

Bermuda was selected in 1997 as a world testing ground for IBM's Fastgate system and the British Government were planning to launch it in UK airports if successful.

Promising to revolutionise airport clearance, Fastgate aimed to allow Bermuda-based mainly business travellers arriving back on the Island to move rapidly through Customs in about 15 seconds using a credit-card sized passport and hand print ID. But it has come in for sharp criticism this week from local business people who use the system.

Top lawyer James Pearman in a letter to the Editor of this newspaper charged that since he first received a card to speed him through "Fastgate'' it has never worked.

"It doesn't work very often, I'll give you that,'' said another businessman who asked that his name not be used in this story. I get the impression that the Customs officers are used to seeing who they're dealing with and prefer to use the old-fashioned system.'' Said another local business person, also speaking on condition of anonymity: "It's never worked for me, except once, and then the bags took so long to arrive that I might as well have stayed in the slow lane.'' Mr. Pearman offered three main possibilities as to why the system does not work: (1) IBM does not wish to fix it; (2) IBM has been told not to fix it; or (3) Airport civil servants will not fix the Fastgate, in case it costs jobs.

In a small straw poll carried out by The Royal Gazette yesterday evening among professed Fastgate cardholders, a note of levity was apparent.

Six of the nine respondents voted for number (3).

One, presumably with her tongue in her cheek, suggested that the scheme was merely a way of reminding Bermuda residents not to go away so often.

Another suggested that perhaps IBM was preparing Bermuda for an Island-wide systems failure in the year 2000; a A third said that Mr. Pearman should try talking to the machine in a conciliatory fashion.

"That seems to work best with everyone else at the airport,'' said the source.

Transport Minister Ewart Brown could not be reached for comment.