A barrier to a business car park is usually installed to fix a single problem. This could be commuter abuse of staff parking, delivery vehicles parking for the night, or fly tipping at the back of the site. Getting it right means being straight about which problem it is, because a barrier that prevents parking abuse isn’t going to stop a vehicle attack. Conversely, a barrier system installed to stop a vehicle attack is probably overkill for a staff parking barrier.
Rising arm barriers
The standard car park barrier is a post-mounted, manually or motorised operated, horizontal boom. Manual barriers are more applicable to low usage situations where someone is onsite to operate the barrier. Automatic barriers are more suitable to high usage situations and can be operated from various proximity devices (fob, keypad), access control units (intercom) and/or recognition devices (number plate recognition). Where the entrance also has to be locked overnight, a gate does that job better and a trackless bi-folding gate opens almost as quickly as a barrier.
As a general reference, one UK supplier sells a standard manual rise barrier for around £940 ex VAT and a heavy duty automatic barrier for around £3,900 ex VAT. Additional costs for groundworks, power, loop cutting and access control can increase the overall cost of the barrier, and in some cases, can cost more than the barrier itself.
How it knows when to open
This is where most of the day to day frustration comes from. Staff lose fobs. Visitors can’t find the intercom. Delivery drivers sit and wait. For staff only locations use fobs. For locations where visitors and deliveries are frequent use either the intercom or ANPR. Where both are frequent use a combination of the two.
Stopping it hitting cars
Barrier arms coming down on vehicles is the classic failure. To avoid this, loops embedded in the roadway detect vehicles passing through the arm. Photocells provide a second check. Both of these have to be installed and positioned correctly for the vehicles which use the site. A loop set up for cars may not be reliable for detecting a high sided vehicle.
Barrier Safety: Loops and Photocells
Crash-rated barriers
Standard car park barriers are not designed to take a direct impact from a vehicle. Where the risk is genuine, particularly at government and utility sites, or high-profile sites, barriers are impact-tested to standards such as PAS 68, IWA 14 or the lower-speed PAS 170. These are a different class of product with a different price and most business car parks do not need to look at these solutions.