What level of redundancy do I need in my Automated Gate?

Usually redundancy has no priority, especially since the CERTUS AutoGate is developed to be operational 24/7. All components and the system architecture are designed for this purpose. A defect in one lane will not impact the complete gate (because our system does not depend on a Field Equipment Cabinet).

However, the bigger the terminal, the bigger the truck peaks at the gate. To limit the risk of truck queuing, we recommend building in redundancy. In addition, our system can be perfectly designed to be operational 24/7, nothing can prevent damage when a truck hits the installation. Experience from the field shows that catastrophic events like this happen more often than you might think. A certain level of redundancy is therefore important. But what level?

The goal with redundancy is to eliminate single points of failure and provide reliable uptime for your gate process. There is no limit to what you can spend on redundancy but all decisions must start with considering what the price of failure will be without redundant systems in place.

In general, we recommend applying the following level of redundancy for terminals larger than 500.000 teu.

OCR PORTALS

The number of OCR portals / lanes depends on the expected peak volume. If this result in 1 lane (in or out) we recommend 1 spare lane.

GATE LANES

Again, the number of lanes depends on the expected peak volume. However, we recommend using 1 spare lane. This extra lane will also help the terminal to be prepared for future growth.

In short, to determine the level of redundancy, a consideration must be made between the costs of back-up components and the consequences for your operations when a gate area is out of order.