Car park barriers and road blockers
Rising arm barriers, road blockers and height restriction barriers, supplied, installed, commissioned and maintained. For car parks, service yards, industrial estates, retail sites and managed residential blocks.
We look after barriers on any make, whether we installed them or not.
What we install
Rising arm barriers
The standard 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 will not 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
Where there is no room to swing an arm up, or where the opening is wider than an arm will span.
Temporary barriers
Site access during construction, events or phased works, where the arrangement has to change as the site does.
Barriers in service
The sites that need one
- Car parks. Controlling who enters, keeping bays for the people they are meant for, and closing the site outside opening hours.
- Retail and leisure. Managing dwell time and stopping the car park being used by people who are not customers.
- Industrial estates and service yards. Keeping delivery and plant traffic on the correct route and off the pedestrian one.
- Managed residential blocks. Bought by managing agents rather than by 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 on its own is a piece of ironmongery. What makes it useful is what tells it to lift. We wire barriers into intercoms, keypads, proximity readers, fobs, loop detectors and site access systems so that 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 should not, and someone eventually lifts the arm by hand and breaks it properly. Stuck up, and the site is open to anyone.
That is why barriers are the most common thing on a planned maintenance contract. 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 produces a documented job report setting out what was found and what was done.
Where a barrier is not 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.
Barrier bollards, the short fixed bollards set either side of a barrier to stop drivers clipping the mechanism, are worth specifying at the same time. They are cheap 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 has to tell it to lift, which is 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 is safe to drop, normally a second loop or a photocell, so it will not come down on a vehicle. The arm is designed to break away or fold rather than take the full impact if it is 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 is there to manage traffic that is prepared to stop, and it will not withstand a vehicle that simply drives through it. A road blocker is a steel plate or wedge that rises out of the road surface and is specified where the risk is a vehicle that does not intend to stop.
Can a barrier be integrated with our existing access control?
Usually, yes. 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 the existing system at the survey rather than assuming.
Do you maintain barriers you did not install?
Yes, on any make. You do not need a contract to get a one-off repair, and you do not need us to have installed it.
Barriers we have installed
