Ship Chartering Brokers, Customs Agents and Freight Forwarder; DTS’s International Freight Terminal, is a 10.5-acre freight handling facility outside Newcastle upon Tyne.
The DTS International Freight Terminal offers 100,000 square feet of customs approved warehousing with loading facilities. DTS’ transport vehicles range from the very small to the very large, to cover every aspect of transport need.
As part of their logistics business, DTS have become members of Palletline, for ‘on time’ distribution throughout the UK and Europe. Palletline was created to reduce the cost, and improve the efficiency, of overnight, part-load, palletised distribution nationwide, to the benefit of members and their customers.
At such a freight facility, vehicles are constantly moving in and out. The site’s remote entry system, operated by radio frequency key fob controls was proving to be problematic, with drivers losing, forgetting or being unable to reach their key fobs. This meant that the entrance surveillance cameras had to be monitored throughout the day. Lost key fobs are also expensive to replace.
A conversation between Peter Cairns, DTS Operations Principal, and his industrial estate neighbour, Tom Handysides, Derwent Systems’ Business Development Manager, provided a way forward. Security lighting and licence plate capture product firm Derwent had just developed REG-SENTRY, the company’s first vehicle access control system based on automatic number plate recognition (ANPR), a solution that would not only solve DTS’ problems, but make a final test bed for the product. Looking to replace his radio frequency key fob system, Peter agreed to trial REG-SENTRY on his entry/exit barrier. The system allowed Peter to programme in the licence plates of all staff and expected vehicles, any unexpected visitors were halted at the barrier.
The product can be installed as a stand-alone system, or integrated with access control equipment. REG-SENTRY is configured using a standard PC, to permit or bar the entry of any vehicles attempting to enter a secure site. Users upload licence plate data using the PC based commissioning Sentry-Viewer, to create their own user defined licence plate Black/White list. Derwent’s REG camera captures the licence plates of vehicles approaching an access control point and sends that data to the REG-SENTRY control box, which processes the information, compares it to the list and sends a signal to the gate or access control barrier to automatically open or remain closed. Derwent add that the system works under any ambient lighting conditions, day and night.
REG-SENTRY can be used to control a vehicle access barrier or gate including those guarding car parks, gated communities, factories, warehouses, offices, schools and colleges.
