Traffic Management System using Loxone

Challenge

Security and Access control was of concern for one of our customers running his caravan park. On two occasions a caravan had been stolen because the entrance to the park was open access with no barrier or other means of controlling those authorised to be on the park.

We were approached to help develop a solution for controlling a barrier system that would only allow authorised vehicles access in and out of the site for a set period of time. Additionally, the solution had to integrate with the park’s online booking system operated and managed by a company in the South West of England.

Furthermore, it should also be possible for the park owner to have the facility for operating the barrier whenever reception was unmanned. This facility needed to be available both locally and remotely from the site.

Solution

For the physical barrier itself we worked with a third-party company who installed a hydraulic bollard. This was a better solution than a rising barrier as it allowed pedestrians and cyclists to easily pass the entrance without having to operate the barrier system itself. At the same time this ensured only authorised vehicles could pass and kept unauthorised vehicles out.

To accomplish access control we installed two Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras since the key purpose was automatic authorised vehicle access without user intervention, i.e. no key cards or fobs. The challenge here though was to keep the cameras constantly up to date with the park’s online booking system. For this part we developed our own in-house web server solution providing secure access from the online booking system and manages the ANPR camera’s databases.

Now, since the park only had a single entry/exit route, the bollard system was to have traffic lights to allow only one vehicle to pass at a time for both entry and exit. However, there was the potential that vehicles could arrive at the bollard at the same time or even a queue could form off the main road. Since the bollard supplier was unable to distinguish which vehicles had priority and could not keep a count of vehicles waiting, our solution was to use Loxone as a Traffic Management System.

The solution was to always give priority to vehicles arriving off the main road regardless of vehicles waiting to leave the park. This was purely a safety issue to ensure that during high traffic flow times, queues would not form on the main highway.

Having solved the issue with keeping the cameras up to date with vehicle registration numbers using our own in-house solution, we could rely on the cameras to provide signals whenever an authorised vehicle was detected on either side of the bollard.

The camera signals are fed into a Loxone system that maintains a count of vehicles waiting either side of the bollard. As a vehicle is detected (with priority on the entry side), our Loxone solution sends a signal to the bollard control system (entry or exit) to lower the bollard and thus operate the traffic lights accordingly. Once a vehicle has passed and the bollard was rising again, the Loxone system would send a further signal to drop the bollard in response, if it still had a count of authorised vehicles waiting.

Since the system has been installed this has given assurance to caravan owners on-site that their caravans are safe and to the park owner knowing that no unauthorised vehicles can come onto the park.