The after-effects of the terrorist attacks on targets in America on 11 September 2001 are still being felt. Frankfurt Airport (Fraport), the second largest European airport, is no exception to this. Safety requirements are becoming ever stricter. Since 1 January 2006 everybody who wants to enter the forecourt is checked with a metal detector.

Vehicle lock

One effect of the second phase of implementation of EU directive 1138/2004 was that now crew and other staff, and all objects, vehicles, goods and personal belongings they bring to the airport have to be searched.

Engineers have developed a special vehicle lock to check the vehicles trying to access the airport. Magnetic Autocontrol, which has been supplying barrier systems to the airport for years, was awarded the contract to install 160 barriers of a special version of the MIB40 type, with a folding gate under the barrier arm. On every lane, two pairs of barriers opposite each other work in parallel to create an ′air lock′ (security zone), through which the vehicles pass one by one.

Tight planning

The project had to be completed within 15 working days, which was an extra challenge to all the companies participating. Especially since the winter conditions – rain, snow and low temperatures – were not really beneficial to the speed at which they could work. However, this was no problem for Magnetic Autocontrol. We are famous in the industry for our customer focus and for our expertise in these kinds of projects. The implementation work consisted of preparing the concrete pavement to enable the more than 9,000 metres of induction loops to be installed. In addition to assembling the barrier systems, the control equipment and facilities (such as card readers, video monitoring units, search rooms and guard posts, wiring) were installed within the time frame planned. The vehicle locks were put into use by Frankfurt airport on 1 January 2006.

This is yet another airport project which Magnetic Autocontrol can add to its list of reference projects featuring successful projects at Dubai Airport, Shenzhen Airport … etc. Magnetic Autocontrol`s product range for airports consists of barriers and turnstiles for outdoor security, automatic immigration gates, boarding gates and  partitions for internal security.