Heron Bros. is a construction and property development company that operates throughout the UK, Ireland and Europe, with more than 250 employees.

Heron Bros. HQ recently underwent a car park redesign. The car park provides access down a narrow single-track road that takes two-way traffic. To ensure security of the site and an optimal traffic flow, the company wanted an automatic vehicle identification solution to ensure fast access for authorised vehicles to the site, without stopping to present their pass to the card reader.

There are two types of user groups that require access to the headquarters. First, all employees that work at the HQ enter the site with their passenger car. At the same time, this entrance is also used by truck drivers. The access road runs at 90 degrees to the gates with no approach area in front of the gates, which makes it hard for large vehicle to enter the site smoothly. Therefore, Inova Gates Ltd was selected to install two sliding gates each of 7 metres wide. One of the requirements was that if a car or van approached, only the left-hand gate would open. If a truck approached, then both gates would open.

To facilitate a smooth access control solution, Nortech’s Norpass3 access control software was selected and integrated with Nedap’s long-range Transit Ultimate readers. As vehicle access to both the entrance and exit needed to be controlled, two readers are positioned at the gates. One at the inside of the gate that detects all exits and one at the outside of the gate to identify all entries.

Nedap’s high-end Transit reader enables simultaneous identification of vehicles and drivers based on RFID technology at distances of up to 10 metres (33 feet). Each authorised vehicle is issued with a Nedap Window Button Switch, a long-range identification tag with user activation. The long-reading range and wide read angle of the Transit Ultimate reader ensures a high reading performance for every type of vehicle. Nortech’s control system determines if the identified vehicle is authorised to enter the site, based on the authorisation in the Norpass3 system.

This new AVI solution adopted by Heron Bros. brings all kind of benefits including, a high security level combined with convenience; optimal traffic flow; robust industrial reader design; read range of up to 10 metres; Transit Ultimate is able to detect vehicle tags in difficult approach angles; reliable long-range identification avoids manual intervention; reliable long-range identification reduces running costs; and, easy windshield mounting of windscreen tag using suction pad.

“Although the installation gave some challenges with the angle of the road to the reader, the technical teams of both Inova Gates and Nortech worked together to create a very satisfactory installation”. Cathal Rogers, General Manager at Inova Gates Ltd.