Arizona airport perimeter secured by HySecurity

Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport in Arizona selected HySecurity to provide a reliable vehicle access control solution to help secure the airport perimeter.

On 13 February 2023, the airport marked a milestone of over 200,000 daily passenger volume. The Federal Aviation Administration also notes that in 2022 alone, the airport had a total passenger volume of over 44 million, an average daily passenger volume of over 120,000, managed over 418,000 aircrafts and handled over 420,000 tons of cargo.

Legacy systems

The company says that for several years, the airport relied on a hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) solution and an access control system to manage the flow of vehicular traffic into its terminals, as well as ensure the security of passengers, airport staff and airline personnel.

Over time, environmental factors such as extreme temperatures, sand and dirt caused wear and tear on the existing airport perimeter security solution, making it unreliable and expensive with frequent maintenance.

The airport therefore called on its maintenance partner, Phoenix Fence, a fencing and gate automation company, to help find a new airport perimeter security solution.

Critical considerations

When searching for a new solution, Phoenix Fence outlined a few key considerations:

• The airport perimeter security solution needed to safely enable authorized employees to come and go while simultaneously preventing unauthorized vehicles from entering the property
• Key assets such as fuel and electrical lines run underground to service aircraft, so perimeter security equipment must be installed without digging too deep into the ground and possibly damaging an asset
• Eliminate underground hydraulic lines and reduce installation costs
• The new solution required mitigation of environmental factors such as extreme temperatures, windblown sand and debris. The solution should also reduce or eliminate continued cleaning and maintenance to avoid operational failure

Phoenix Fence then approached Nice | HySecurity to provide the vehicle access control solution.

Airport perimeter protection

HySecurity installed a total of 28 StrongArm M50 gate operators to secure the entire perimeter of the airport.

The StrongArm M50 was chosen because:

• An ASTM F2656-07 M50 rating can reliably secure active runways from breaches in the perimeter
• Uncompromising safety features such as high visibility lights, stop-and-go traffic signal and unique dual-arm design provide superior passenger protection in case of accidental strike
• It includes an above-ground design with no underground hydraulics, minimal maintenance requirements that consistently performs in variable conditions such as extreme temperature ranges, sand or dirt in the environment and power outages
• A full 90-degree open with quick arm speed enables convenient access to even the largest of supply vehicles

“This was the cleanest project of this size we’ve ever been a part of [and] the maintenance is a night and day difference,” said Paul Mastin of Phoenix Fence.