Resources

Technical guides for specifiers

Reference notes on the standards, ratings and design decisions behind physical security specifications — written for the consultant drafting the document, not the buyer signing it.

Standards & ratings9 min read

Crash ratings explained: what M30, M40, M50 and K12 actually mean

M ratings, K ratings and ISO 22343-1 describe different tests under different rules, and none of them can be converted into another. This guide sets out what each designation commits a supplier to, what the certificate does not cover, and how to write a barrier clause that cannot be substituted at tender stage.

Design10 min read

Designing security in layers, from the site boundary inward

Layered design is not a longer shopping list. It is an arithmetic exercise: each layer has to delay an intruder for longer than it takes to detect, assess and respond to them. This guide works from the approach road inward and shows what each layer must be specified to do.

Standards & ratings

9 min read

Crash ratings explained: what M30, M40, M50 and K12 actually mean

Design

10 min read

Designing security in layers, from the site boundary inward

10 min read

What a proper HVM site survey covers before any product is chosen

A hostile vehicle mitigation survey exists to turn a threat statement into two numbers: the impact energy the line must resist and the penetration you can tolerate. This guide sets out the threat definition, the vehicle dynamics assessment, the site measurements and the operational constraints that must be settled before a barrier is selected.

Product selection

10 min read

Choosing entrance control: tripod, full-height, speed gate or swing gate

Turnstile selection goes wrong when throughput and security are treated as a single scale. They are separate requirements with separate arithmetic. This guide sets out what each family physically prevents, how to size lanes properly, and how to write safety and egress requirements that the fire authority will accept.

11 min read

ANPR, ticketing or RFID: choosing and sizing a parking system

Parking technology is usually chosen before anyone has written down what the system is for, and sized on average demand rather than peak. This guide covers the three credential models, what plate recognition genuinely needs in order to work, the arithmetic behind lane counts and queue storage, and the safety standards that apply to the barrier itself.

Compliance

11 min read

Specifying access control: readers, controllers, credentials and biometrics

Most access control specifications describe a product and leave the security properties to chance. This guide covers the decisions that actually determine whether a system can be cloned, bypassed or abandoned: offline behaviour, reader communications, credential cryptography, biometric evidence and the data protection obligations that apply in the Kingdom.