Planning Access Control at Car Parks and Residential Entrances
Published:
Publisher: Alkur Kapı Sistemleri A.Ş.
Summary
Access control at a car park or residential entrance is decided in three layers: barrier or gate (who uses the passage), detection and authorisation (loop, card, plate recognition, remote), and the outage scenario. Arm length is not taken as equal to passage width, and where an entrance must keep working through an outage, battery backup is planned from the start.
Access control at a car park or residential entrance is not a matter of picking one product: vehicle flow, the authorisation method and the outage scenario are settled together. This article lists what to look at on residential complex, plaza car park and commercial site entrances.
Barrier or sliding gate?
The two products do different jobs, and on most projects the choice follows the security requirement.
A barrier regulates vehicle passage but does not physically close the opening; a pedestrian or cyclist can pass under the arm. It is fast (3 – 4 seconds) and the right answer in heavy traffic: car park entrances, visitor control, weighbridge lanes.
A sliding gate closes the opening completely and keeps the site physically shut outside working hours. Its opening time is longer (about 38 seconds on a 6 m opening, noticeably shorter in the high-speed range), but it provides night-time security.
At many sites both are used: the barrier manages flow by day, the gate closes the site at night.
Arm length and mounting position
On a barrier, the arm is not taken as equal to the passage width. The body sits at the edge of the lane and the arm must leave allowance on the far side when closed; without it, the arm cannot rest on the opposite kerb or its support post. Standard single lanes use 4.25 – 5.25 m, wide passages and dual lanes 6.25 – 7.25 m, with the telescopic arm adjustable between 6.25 and 7.25 m during installation.
Where no base can be cast, the wall-mounted solution takes over: with a 3.25 m arm and a 3 second opening time, it is designed for enclosed car park entrances, passages under buildings and narrow entry corridors. The precondition is that the wall carries the leverage load of the arm; on hollow brickwork, a load-bearing surface must be prepared for the anchors.
Waiting time is set by the close delay, not arm speed
Opening time grows with arm length as the moment of inertia grows, even at the same motor power. The way to shorten total passage time at peak hour is not to force arm speed but to set the auto-close delay, adjustable between 5 and 90 seconds, correctly.
Detection and authorisation
Access control has two distinct layers that should not be confused: detection says a vehicle is there, authorisation says it has the right to pass.
Loop detector senses the vehicle through a frame set into the floor. The channel is cut 3 cm wide and 5 cm deep with the cable wound 5 turns; the detector box must sit at least 25 cm from the control unit.
Card reader supports 125 kHz and 13.56 MHz RFID, holds up to 1000 records and is used outdoors with an IP65 rating.
Remote control works on 433 MHz rolling code, preventing a recorded transmission from being replayed. The receiver holds up to 100 remotes.
Plate recognition removes the need to carry a card or remote; resident and visitor separation is managed on the software side.
When a card or remote is lost, its record must be deleted from memory; a record left enrolled stays authorised and the access control loses its meaning.
Where entry and exit lanes sit side by side
Two loops on the same frequency interact and the detectors produce phantom detections. The four frequency options (dip switches 3 and 4) exist for exactly this case, and adjacent loops must be given different frequencies. Where this setting is skipped at installation, the problem surfaces not in the first days but once traffic builds.
What happens during an outage?
If the entrance must keep working through a power cut, that is planned from the start. Battery backup is optional across the 24 V DC range: adding a charger board and a 7 Ah battery to the control unit keeps the gate running when mains power fails. The number of cycles carried depends on leaf weight, temperature and battery age, so the battery is not a plan on its own; a manual release route should remain.
Battery capacity carries 30 – 50 cycles at 7 Ah and 50 – 150 at 12 Ah. Life in standard use is 3 – 5 years and capacity falls without visible warning, which is why the battery is replaced on a schedule rather than on failure.
Electric vehicle charging on the same project
On car park projects the charging unit usually shares the same electrical infrastructure. The wall-mounted unit is fed at 3 × 400 V three phase and draws 32 A per phase; the panel needs a dedicated circuit, cable of adequate cross-section and an external 30 mA Type-A residual current device. Where more than one unit is installed, load management should be planned so the total does not exceed the site’s supply capacity.
What to establish, in order
- How wide is the passage, and is there allowance on the far side when the arm rests?
- Single lane, or two lanes for entry and exit?
- How many vehicles pass at peak hour?
- Can a base be cast, or is wall mounting required?
- Which authorisation method applies, and how is visitor flow managed?
- Must the passage keep working during an outage?
- Is electric vehicle charging planned on the same project?
Send us the passage width, the vehicle profile and the authorisation requirement, and we can size the lane together.
