AST Digital Magazine August 2017 Digital-Aug | Page 36

Volume 15
August 2017 Edition
trol come in a number of forms and types.
Some of the most common types of turn-
stiles include:
Mechanical Turnstiles
• Waist high (tripod) or full height (7 foot) ver-
sions. A card reader, pushbutton, or other au-
thentication device grants a credit, and pas-
sage is allowed to only one person per credit.
• Typically handicap access must be provided
separately because mechanical turnstiles
only facilitate able bodied persons.
• No electronic detection, and requires manual
pushing of the tripod arm or full height comb
for entry.
• Advantage: generally lowest cost type of turn-
stile.
Optical Turnstiles
• Pure optical turnstiles will detect passage per
person and will alarm if unauthorized persons
enter or exit (the number of access authoriza-
tions or valid card reads is compared to the
number of passages.
• Optical turnstiles are widely recognized as
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being a valuable aid for lobby staff (security
officers, etc.) in that they help to single out in-
dividuals needing further assistance (expired
credentials or unprocessed visitors).
ADA access is easily accommodated by de-
signing 1 lane with an accessible width of 36
or more.
Advantages: higher throughput, no touch op-
eration and architectural friendly design.
Barrier Type Optical Turnstiles*
Sometimes referred to as Speedlanes or
Smartlanes, these next-generation optical
turnstiles include either swinging or retract-
ing (sliding) glass or other physical barriers
to further discourage unauthorized access at-
tempts.
Advantages: greater security, requires less
monitoring.
Security Portals/Revolving Doors
• Security revolving doors are like their more
traditional revolving door cousins, except that
they incorporate a card reader/authentication
device and some piggyback/tailgate detection
to control access of one person per transac-
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