Skip to main content

EPS shows new anti-terrorist barrier

Terrorists using vehicles to drive into crowds of pedestrians has become an all-too-common phenomenon in recent years. Preventing them from carrying out such attacks is the aim of a new barrier system from EPS. The Italian company’s Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) system consists of a series of hexagonal bases, each holding a large vertical pillar. The system is made of steel throughout, with the individual bases able to be connected with steel pins to create a customised barrier.
March 21, 2018 Read time: 2 mins
Stopping the threat: Luca Giubilato
Terrorists using vehicles to drive into crowds of pedestrians has become an all-too-common phenomenon in recent years. Preventing them from carrying out such attacks is the aim of a new barrier system from 8718 EPS.


The Italian company’s Hostile Vehicle Mitigation (HVM) system consists of a series of hexagonal bases, each holding a large vertical pillar. The system is made of steel throughout, with the individual bases able to be connected with steel pins to create a customised barrier.

The company says that the shape of the HVM was inspired by the Giant’s Causeway, a geological phenomenon on the coast of Northern Ireland, which consists of a series of interlocking basalt columns.

The company has chosen Intertraffic for the first showing of the new system. Engineer Luca Giubilato from EPS’s research and development team said that tests had shown the system capable of withstanding the impact of a 3.5-tonne truck being driven at it at 48km/h.

The basic weight of each unit is 281kg, but the strength and rigidity of the system can be further increased by slotting a solid steel weight inside each of the vertical pillars. That boosts the weight to 700kg.

The system is designed so that if an attacker’s vehicle rides up over the first column, it will slump on top of the pillars, rather than clearing them.

The individual modules are installed and removed using a hydraulic crane.

EPS has taken out a patent on the system, which has already aroused interest from potential customers in Switzerland and Norway, said Giubilato.

Stand 6.403

%$Linker: 2 External <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-16"?><dictionary /> 0 0 0 link-external www.eps.net false http://www.eps.net/ false false%>

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • MaaS Market London: Ertico’s Jacob Bangsgaard joins speaker line-up
    December 20, 2018
    More leading ITS innovators have been confirmed as speakers at ITS International’s fourth MaaS Market conference in London, UK, on March 20-21, 2019. Among them is Jacob Bangsgaard, CEO of European association Ertico and president of the MaaS Alliance, the public-private partnership working to create the foundations for a common European approach to Mobility as a Service (MaaS). From the UK, Paul Campion, CEO of Transport Systems Catapult and Chris Lane, head of smart travel from Transport for West Midlan
  • Octopus opts for Sony’s FeliCa at CARTES 2013
    November 19, 2013
    Mobile phone users in Hong Kong with Sony FeliCa-equipped NFC SIMs will be able to use their phones to make payments as part of the city’s ‘Octopus’ contactless payment system. The initiative, initially run as a pilot, will enable users to pay for public transport and retail goods. This new joint development with Octopus Cards Limited will enable users to access the same services as those offered by the conventional Octopus cards and products, simply by installing the FeliCa-based Applet for Octopus p
  • ATRI seeks input on truck platooning
    November 25, 2014
    Working in collaboration with two FHWA-sponsored project teams, the American Transportation Research Institute (ATRI) is conducting research to explore trucking industry perspectives on the use of automated truck platooning, also known as Driver Assistive Truck Platooning. This concept is based on a system that controls inter-vehicle spacing based on information from forward-looking radars and direct vehicle-to-vehicle communications. Braking and other operational data is constantly exchanged between th
  • VASCO unveils its new visual transaction signing solution DIGIPASS 760 at CARTES 2013
    November 19, 2013
    Software security and authorisation specialist VASCO Data Security International is launching DIGIPASS 760, a new visual transaction signing solution at this year’s show.