Car park barriers and road blockers
Keep traffic moving where you want it and out of where you don't. Our team supplies, installs, commissions and looks after rising arm barriers, road blockers and height restriction barriers for car parks, service yards, industrial estates, retail sites and managed residential blocks.
We're happy to look after barriers on any make, whether we installed them or not.
The barriers we install
Rising arm barriers
The familiar car park barrier. An arm lifts to let a vehicle through and drops behind it. Specified by arm length, cycle speed and how hard the entrance works.
Road blockers
A steel plate or wedge that rises out of the road surface. Where a barrier arm would simply be driven through, a road blocker won't be.
Height restriction barriers
Fixed or swing-away frames that keep vehicles above a set height out of a car park, a service yard or an undercroft.
Sliding barriers
For when there's no room to swing an arm up, or the opening is wider than an arm will span.
Temporary barriers
Site access during construction, events or phased works, where the arrangement needs to change as the site does.
Barriers in service
Rising arm barriers built for continuous use
Alongside barriers from the makes we work with, we supply and install a dedicated range of automatic rising arm barriers, in a standard and a heavy duty model. Both run a DC brushless motor with spring assistance, in a zinc plated, powder coated cabinet, so they keep going all day on busy car parks and commercial and industrial entrances.
- Arms up to 9m. Plain arms up to 9m, skirted arms up to 8m, and a full height Hi-Bar up to 6m.
- Red and green LED arm lights, so drivers can see whether to go, even at night.
- Safe on contact. A rubber safety buffer on the arm, and it reverses automatically if it meets an obstruction.
- Works in a power cut. The arm can be raised by hand, and with an optional power storage module it lifts by itself when the power goes.
- Up to 9marm length on the heavy duty model
- 100%continuous duty, DC brushless motor
- 24control functions built in
- -35°Cand still working
Plain, skirted or Hi-Bar
A plain arm is enough on most car parks. A lower skirt hangs under the arm to stop people walking or cycling underneath it, and a Hi-Bar fills the whole opening, for sites where nothing should get past. Choose an arm to see it.
Cabinets are red, RAL 3020, with a white lid, RAL 9010.
| Standard barrier | Heavy duty barrier | |
|---|---|---|
| Best for | Car parks and commercial entrances | Busy car parks and commercial or industrial entrances |
| Plain arm | 3m to 6m | Up to 9m |
| Arm with lower skirt | 3m or 4m | 5m to 8m |
| Hi-Bar arm | Not available | 4m to 6m |
| Cabinet footprint | 320 by 400mm | 426 by 476mm |
| Drive | DC brushless motor, spring assisted, 100% continuous duty | |
| Finish | Zinc plated and powder coated; red cabinet, white lid | |
| Supplied with | Red and green LED arm lights, rubber safety buffer, pogo tip support for the end of the arm, receiver board, two remote fobs and anchor bolts | |
The drive unit
Side mounted and compact, so it's quick to put together and easy to service. The numbers on the picture match the key.
- Three-link arm linkage. Arc-shaped, so the arm does not sag, warp or lift, and is easy to balance.
- Worm-gear transmission. Three-stage, high torque and low noise, with no oil to leak. Works down to minus 35°C.
- DC brushless motor. Low power, runs cool and continuously, with a wide range of speeds. Spring assisted.
- Hand crank. Raises the arm by hand in a power cut.
Sets itself up
Hall effect limit sensing finds the arm's end positions by itself when it's powered up, so there's no fiddly adjustment, and it keeps watching the motor speed so the arm moves the same way every time.
Left or right on site
The arm can be swapped from left hand to right hand opening on site, so the barrier fits the entrance it ends up at.
What the controller can do
Built into every barrier in the range, ready to be set up the way your site works.
Movement
- Adjustable speed, with a soft start and a soft stop
- Adjustable limit angle
- Left or right hand opening, changed on site
- Delayed arm drop
- One button cycle, up then down
Safety
- Photocell input
- Loop detector and radar inputs to stop the arm landing on a vehicle
- Reverses automatically on an obstruction
- Fire alarm input
- Optional anti-collision alarm
Traffic
- One car, one lift, so a second car can't follow through
- Vehicle counting for fleets
- Traffic light and LED light outputs
- Arm up and arm down signals for other equipment
- RS485 connection to site systems
Control and power
- 418MHz remotes with anti-copy protection
- Open, close and stop inputs for any access control
- Raised by hand in a power cut
- Lifts by itself when the power goes, with the optional power storage module
- 24V backup battery input
Barriers from the range
Product photographs and drawings of the range we supply, install and maintain.
The sites that need one
- Car parks. Controlling who comes in, keeping bays for the people they're meant for, and closing the site outside opening hours.
- Retail and leisure. Managing dwell time and keeping the car park for your customers.
- Industrial estates and service yards. Keeping delivery and plant traffic on the right route and off the pedestrian one.
- Managed residential blocks. Usually chosen by managing agents rather than residents, and specified around leaseholder access, visitor parking and what the block can actually be charged for.
- Height restricted areas. Undercrofts, low structures and car parks where an over-height vehicle causes a very expensive afternoon.
Also relevant: public sector and local authority.
Barriers that work with the rest of the entrance
A barrier is only as useful as whatever tells it to lift, so we make sure the right people get through easily. We wire barriers into intercoms, keypads, proximity readers, fobs, loop detectors and site access systems, so one credential works across the whole entrance, gates and bollards included.
Automatic number plate recognition can be part of that arrangement where a site already runs it or wants it, as one input among several.
What a stuck barrier actually costs
A barrier fails in one of two ways, and both are expensive. Stuck down, and nobody gets in: deliveries queue on the road, staff park where they shouldn't, and someone eventually lifts the arm by hand and breaks it properly. Stuck up, and the site is open to anyone.
That's why barriers are the most common thing on a planned maintenance contract, and why looking after them is where we really earn our keep. Arms get hit, gearboxes wear, loop detectors get cut by resurfacing, and photocells fill with grit.
We hold 100+ maintenance contracts, we offer same day emergency response, and every visit ends with a documented job report setting out what we found and what we did.
When a barrier isn't the answer
A barrier closes a lane. Where the job is to protect a specific point, keep a pedestrian area clear or stop a vehicle mounting a kerb, the answer is usually a bollard instead, or as well. We'll help you choose.
Barrier bollards, the short fixed bollards set either side of a barrier to stop drivers clipping the mechanism, are worth adding at the same time. They're a small addition, and they save the barrier.
Barrier bollards save the barrier
Set either side of the mechanism, so a driver clips the bollard rather than the gearbox.
Common questions
How does a car park barrier work?
A motor and gearbox in the housing raise and lower a counterbalanced arm. Something tells it to lift, usually a fob, a keypad, an intercom, a proximity reader, a ticket machine or a loop detector buried in the road surface. Something else tells it when it's safe to drop, normally a second loop or a photocell, so it won't come down on a vehicle. The arm is designed to break away or fold rather than take the full impact if it's hit.
What is the difference between a barrier and a road blocker?
A barrier arm controls access; a road blocker resists it. A barrier arm manages traffic that is prepared to stop, and it won't withstand a vehicle that simply drives through it. A road blocker is a steel plate or wedge that rises out of the road surface, specified where the risk is a vehicle that doesn't intend to stop.
Can a barrier be integrated with our existing access control?
Yes, usually. Barriers accept a dry contact input from most access systems, so if you already run readers, fobs or an intercom, the barrier can be triggered from the same credential. We check your existing system at the survey rather than assuming.
Do you maintain barriers you did not install?
Yes, on any make. You don't need a contract to get a one-off repair, and you don't need us to have installed it.
How long can a barrier arm be?
On our automatic barrier range, a plain arm goes up to 6m on the standard barrier and up to 9m on the heavy duty one. With a lower skirt the longest arms are 4m and 8m, and a full height Hi-Bar goes up to 6m. Longer arms rest on a pogo tip support at the far end, so they don't sag.
Can a barrier be raised in a power cut?
Yes. Every barrier in our automatic range can be raised by hand, and with the optional power storage module it lifts by itself as soon as the power goes. A 24V backup battery can also be connected to keep it working through an outage.
Barriers we have installed
