BROUGHTON HIGH SECURITY LAUNCHES
SECURITY RATED TURNSTILE
Broughton Control’s rapidly expanding High Security Division has launched a new high security turnstile, the Defender 970, aimed at customers requiring unsupervised control of pedestrian access within a site perimeter.
The Defender 970 High Security Turnstile is the latest addition to a range of products from Broughton High Security aimed at front line security locations including ports, airports, prisons, police stations and government buildings as well as high risk commercial and industrial facilities such as banks and oil refineries.
With the current trend for the redevelopment of old city centre buildings, a raft of new problems has begun to surface, few greater than where and how to provide for vehicle parking and access. Broughton Controls, well known for manufacturing a range of entrance control barriers, gates and blockers, has recently developed an intelligent traffic monitoring and control system that will open up new possibilities for developers and architects. The system allows the safe use of a single roadway to provide both vehicular entry and exit even in cases where there is no line of sight from one end of the roadway to the other.
Laurence Goode, managing director of Broughton, explains some of the problems the company has been asked to solve with its new system.
"We originally designed this system in response to a particularly difficult site problem where, without a solution, the building conversion would not have been permitted due to the lack of off-road parking. Since developing the basic operating parameters however, we have installed similar intelligent traffic monitoring and control systems to solve a number of different site problems. These have ranged from a single track, three-mile long, access road with passing places where we even included lighting that follows each vehicle along the road during the hours of darkness, to simple cases of 'blind' access points, where large trucks are required to negotiate the corner of a building for example.
The initial projects were carried out as a service to clients who were having trouble finding anyone to provide a solution to their site access problems. Since then, we have been receiving an increasing number of requests for this type of intelligent traffic monitoring and control system and it is now included as one of our mainstream products. The Broughton system can be linked to any existing entrance control hardware such as barriers, gates etc as well as card reading software and vehicle tag systems to create a fully automated, traffic management and control package.
In many instances our system is being used as part of the safety measures now required by the recently introduced BS12453:2001 guidelines covering the operation of electrically powered gates and barriers. In this role the system provides the user, ie vehicle driver, with an 'idiot-proof' interface between themselves and the entrance control hardware, helping to prevent the possibility of accident or injury."
CASE STUDY
The Place, Ducie Street , Manchester
Victorian Warehouse Conversion
MainContrators - Watkin jones
The Broughton intelligent traffic management and control system was originally was developed for a luxury housing conversion in a Victorian warehouse in Ducie Street , Manchester . The problem to be overcome was of a two level underground car park accessed by a single, spiral ramp with a second single, spiral ramp between the two floors. To compound these problems, a roller shutter gate was situated half way down the entrance ramp, out of sight from both the start and end of the ramp itself.
Without a suitable solution to the parking and vehicular access problem the building conversion would not have been permitted due to the lack of off-road parking availability.
The system designed by Broughton monitors the approaches to the traffic signals at either end of a controlled zone as well as the entire length of the controlled zone itself. This ensures that traffic is only ever active in one direction at a time through the controlled area and also picks up problems such as a vehicle breakdown within the zone, evident when a vehicle being tracked fails to exit the system within a given time. Fully automated, the Broughton system can be set to sound an alarm and contact a security or reception post for example, but will continue to function in areas unaffected by the breakdown.
In its neutral state the Ducie Street system is set to show red lights to all approaching vehicles, giving priority on a first come, first served basis. In the case of two vehicles arriving at opposite ends of a ramp, priority is given to the exiting vehicle. Should a second exiting vehicle approach whilst the first is still on the ramp, then the system automatically switches to tracking the last vehicle to enter the controlled zone. Once all vehicles exiting have cleared the system, the signals will change allowing the waiting vehicle to enter the car park.
The whole Ducie Street system operates unsupervised and is linked to the onsite hardware such as the roller shutter entrance gate as well as the residents' access card reading software. An additional feature, essential for this location, is a vehicle counter, which means the system will not allow entry onto a particular floor of the car park when there are no spaces available. Combined with an alarm link to the concierge office in case of accidents or other problems, the Broughton solution provides the levels of security and convenience expected by those paying upwards of a quarter of a million pounds for a city centre home.
