What are turnstiles & Types of Turnstiles

Last updated on: March 20th, 2023 20:23 pm

What are turnstiles?

Turnstiles are a kind of pedestrian access blocking device (access control management equipment), which is mainly used to control and manage the pedestrian flow and regulate pedestrian access in various scenes in real life. The most basic and core function of a turnstile is to pass only one person at a time, which can be used at the entrance passage of various charging and access control occasions. Turnstiles are generally composed of a turnstile mechanism, chassis, blocking rod, control module, and some auxiliary modules such as alarm, counting, traffic detection, and so on.

Mairs types of turnstiles have ultra-high cost performance and provide high-quality services, so our security turnstiles are very popular in many countries and can be seen in many cities around the world, such as Germany, Australia, Poland, Romania, Canada, Turkey, Malaysia, Singapore, Spain, Moldova, UK, Italy, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, South Korea, Japan, USA.

Turnstyle or Turnstile?

Turnstyle or turnstile? In fact, “turnstyle” is the writing habit of people in some places, or it can also be said that it is a wrong spelling of turnstile, which actually expresses a meaning. Therefore, we don’t have to worry about turn style or turnstile and how to write this word turnstyle or turnstile. If you need a turn style or turnstile, you can contact us. We provide various pedestrian access turnstile gate. Of course, we can also customize types of turnstiles according to your actual needs.

Although turnstyle is a wrong way of writing about the turnstile product, we need not pay too much attention to this situation, because there are many wrong spellings in the world due to various regional and cultural reasons, but people can understand the correct meaning. In addition, most countries in Europe are used to spelling like a turnstyle, while the United States and Canada are used to spelling like a turnstile. These two words can express the same meaning.

what are turnstiles used for?

Turnstiles are designed to control the flow of people and regulate pedestrian access. Say it in more detail, the basic core function of the turnstile is to pass only one person at a time.

This is the biggest function of turnstiles. However, with the continuous development of pedestrian turnstiles in recent years, the emergence of intelligent pedestrian turnstiles has changed the disadvantage of a single function. Intelligent pedestrian turnstiles can be associated with card readers, fingerprint recognition, iris recognition, face recognition, etc to form an intelligent pedestrian turnstile gate, which can avoid the investment of many human resources such as manual ticket checking, at the same time, it can also be linked with the attendance system and monitoring system to form an intelligent management platform.

After we know the function and importance of turnstiles, we should also pay attention to many matters when selecting the types of turnstiles. So how to choose the appropriate turnstile gate for different projects in different places. You can check our other articles: How to choose a turnstile? How many turnstiles do I need? and How much does a turnstile cost? Our company’s main turnstile gates include flap barrier gate, swing turnstile gate, tripod turnstile gate, full height turnstiles, half-height turnstile, etc. All turnstile gates from Mairs can be customized according to the actual needs of customers.

Where to buy different types of turnstiles?

Before introducing different types of turnstiles one by one, let’s show our different types of turnstiles first. You can directly click the product link below to buy. You can also check our product page, if you have any problems or need to customize these products, you can contact us

Different Types of Turnstiles:

What are different types of turnstiles, what are the advantages & disadvantages of each type of turnstiles gate, and which different occasions will use these types of turnstiles?

After my communicating with some new customers, I found that many new customers do not know the types of turnstiles, their advantages, and their disadvantages. so it is difficult to choose which types of turnstiles and how many types of turnstiles do they need. This will affect and increase the completion time of their security project.

This article I wrote includes the answers to these questions, what are the types of turnstiles, and I hope to help people who really need to know them to make the right choices and save their time.

According to the difference of blocking ways and blocking body of turnstile gate, it can be divided into different types of turnstiles as follow:

Tripod turnstile

Tripod turnstile is the most basic type of pedestrian turnstile gate, which is composed of the chassis, mechanism, and three blocking rods which stop or release by rotating 120° each time. Its components include chassis, mechanism, drive control board, motor, limit, direction indicator board, access control part, optional counter, etc. The metal rod (rod length standard 50cm) forms a spatial triangle as the blocking body (brake rod). It is made of 304 or 316 stainless steel, which is durable and not easy to deform. The blocking and releasing are achieved by rotation.

Its blocking body (blocking rod) is composed of three metal rods, which are usually made of hollow closed stainless steel pipe, which is strong and not easy to deform and can be stopped and released by rotation.

Tripod turnstile is the earliest type of turnstiles gate and it’s the most mature and perfect turnstile so far, but it has the trend of being replaced by a swing turnstile gate and a flap barrier gate.

The movement control mode is separately listed as mechanical, semi-automatic, and automatic. It is separately listed as vertical and bridge type in the form, the vertical tripod turnstile is smaller in volume and easy to install, and the bridge tripod turnstile has a longer passage and higher security.

Advantages of tripod turnstile:

1. It can be very effective to achieve a single-person pass, only one person can pass at a time, and security and reliability are relatively high.

2. The cost is relatively low.

3. Very good waterproof and dustproof ability, adaptability to all kinds of environment is very strong, suitable for both indoor and outdoor.

Disadvantages of tripod turnstile:

1. Passage width (refers to the width of pedestrian passage) is relatively small, generally around 500 mm.

2. Pass speed is relatively slow.

3. Restricted by blocking the body, it is not suitable for carrying luggage.

4. Appearance plasticity is not perfect, most styles are not good appearance enough.

5. Mechanical and semi-automatic tripod turnstile operation processes will have mechanical collision, and noise, automatic tripod turnstile does not have this problem.

Applications of tripod turnstile:

Suitable for ordinary pedestrians and people flow is not very large or pedestrian use is not very good, as well as some of the worse outdoor occasions.

The tripod turnstile gate is modern control equipment for the smooth flow of people. It is used where the entry and exit of personnel need to be controlled, provides an orderly and civilized way of passage for the person entering and leaving, and eliminates illegal entry and exit. Such as intelligent community, convention and exhibition, meeting hall, canteen, hotel, museum, gymnasium, club, subway, station, wharf, tourist attractions, convention and Exhibition Center, swimming pool, and other places.

Of course, we just made a brief description here. If you want to know more about tripod turnstile, please check out another article: What is tripod turnstile?

Swing Turnstile Gate

Swing turnstile gate is one of the most widely used pedestrian access control turnstile gates, which is an upgraded product of an intelligent tripod turnstile gate. It is a high-tech product mainly for intelligent management of personnel access control.

The swing turnstile gate is a very common type of turnstiles gate, its blocking body (brake pendulum) shape is a certain area of the plane, perpendicular to the ground, through rotating swing to achieve blocking and release. 304 Stainless steel, plexiglass, and tempered glass are commonly used in blocking the body, and some metal plates are used to wrap special flexible materials (reduce the damage of hitting pedestrians).

It is divided into mechanical and automatic by movement control method. The shape is divided into vertical, bridge, cylindrical, vertical, and cylindrical, the volume of vertical and cylindrical is small, easy to install, but the length of the passage is short, the function of the pedestrian detection module is limited, the bridge swing turnstile gate is longer passage, the pedestrian detection module has stronger function and higher security.

Advantages of swing turnstile:

1. The wide range is the largest among all turnstile gates, generally between 550 mm-1000mm, some high-end products can be 1500 mm, more suitable for carrying luggage wrapped pedestrians or bicycles, can also be used as special access for people with mobility disabilities.

2. Compared with the tripod turnstile gate, the swing turnstile gate increases the pedestrian traffic detection module, which can effectively detect the traffic target and has a strong tail-proof ability.

3. The plasticity of appearance is the strongest among all turnstile gates, the material of blocking body has rich variety, the shape of the box body is also diversified, it is easy to design very beautiful shape, so it is often used in high-end occasions such as office building, smart business building, high-end club and so on.

4. Swing turnstile operation process with no mechanical collision, the noise is relatively small.

Disadvantages of swing turnstile:

1. The cost is high, especially for some special customized models, such as increasing passage width and using special materials, the technical difficulty will increase a lot correspondingly.

2. Some models’ waterproof and dustproof ability is insufficient, only suitable for indoor, environmental adaptability is not strong than tripod turnstile.

3. Limited by the shape of the blocking body, the impact resistance of the brake is lower than the tripod turnstile gate, and the illegal and rapid passage of pedestrians is easy to damage the brake pendulum and movement.

4. If the manufacturer’s design is not good, it will greatly reduce the reliability of the product and reduce the ability to avoid personal injury.

Applications of swing turnstile:

As one of the most widely used turnstile gates, it is mainly used in communities, schools, and factories. It is used for employees to ride bicycles or electric vehicles, motorcycles, and other places that need to be controlled.

It is suitable for the occasions where the width of the passage is wide, including the occasions where pedestrians or bicycles with luggage parcels are more, and the special passage for the disabled. It is also suitable for occasions with high aesthetic requirements.

Here is just a brief description of the swing turnstile gate. If you want to know more details, please check our other article: What is swing turnstile gate?

Flap Barrier Turnstile

The flap barrier is also called a blocking gate, flap barrier gate, or flap barrier turnstile, which is one of the access control management turnstile equipment and is mainly used for pedestrian access control management; It is a kind of access control turnstile device for pedestrians management. It is generally used in combination with biometric device access control. including swipe card access control, fingerprint access control, face recognition access control, etc., which is convenient and fast.

The blocking body of the flap barrier is generally a fan-shaped plane, which is perpendicular to the ground and can be blocked and released by expansion. Plexiglass and tempered glass are often used to block body materials, and some metal plates are also used to wrap special flexible materials (to reduce pedestrian injury).

The core control mode is only automatic. The form also only bridge type, pedestrian detection module function is strong.

Advantages of flap barrier:

1. Pass speed is the fastest among all turnstile gates.

2. Passage width is between the tripod turnstile gate and the swing turnstile gate, generally between 550 mm-990mm.

3. appearance is more beautiful, the gate wing material is a relatively rich variety.

 4. In case of emergency, the gate wing will be quickly retracted into the box, which can easily be a barrier-free passage, improve the speed of passage, and facilitate pedestrian evacuation.

Disadvantages of flap barrier:

1. control mode is more complex, at a high cost.

2. waterproof and dustproof ability is insufficient.

3. appearance is relatively single, plasticity is not strong.

4. limited by the shape of the blocking body, the impact resistance of the wing gate is lower than that of the three-roll gate, and the illegal punching of pedestrians is easy to damage the wing and movement. 5. the technical requirements for the turnstile manufacturers are relatively high, if the design is not good, it will greatly reduce the reliability of the product, as well as the ability to avoid personal injury.

Applications of flap barrier:

The flap barrier really is suitable for one-way or two-way control over a large flow, such as subway, railway stations, docks, tourist attractions import and export channels; Exhibition, swimming pools, etc, Import and export attendance, access control, and consumption management of residential areas, factories, enterprises, and institutions; It is also suitable for occasions with high aesthetic requirements.

If you want to know more details about flap barriers, please check another article: What is flap barrier?

Full height turnstiles

Full height turnstiles are an upgraded product of traditional pedestrian turnstile gates with the best security performance, which are much higher and wider than an ordinary turnstile gate and have obvious security advantages. Full height turnstile can form a closed passage space, personnel pass orderly by swiping cards and other methods. Full height turnstiles can be unattended and have high application value in some places with strict security measures. It is composed of chassis and 3 or 4 rows of rotating rods. It is developed on the basis of a tripod turnstile gate. It can be dissuaded or released by rotating 120° or 90° each time.

Full height turnstiles, developed from tripod turnstile gate, draw lessons from the characteristics of the rotary door (the biggest difference is that the blocking body is not a glass door, but a metal fence). According to the height of the blocking body, it can be divided into a full-height turnstile gate and a half-height turnstile gate. There are many applications for a full-height turnstile gate. In all types of turnstiles, a full-height turnstile has the highest level of security.

The blocking body (brake rod) is generally composed of 3 or 4 metal rods. It is divided into mechanical and semi-automatic by core control mode. According to the number of passages, it is divided into a single passage, double passages, three passages, four passages, and so on, single passages and double passages are more common.

Advantages of full height turnstiles:

 1. The security of the full height turnstile gate is the highest among all turnstile gates, it’s the only one that can be unattended in all turnstile gates.

2. It can be very effective to achieve a single pass, only one person at a time, security and reliability is relatively high.

3. Very good waterproof and dustproof ability, adaptability to all kinds of the environment is very strong, suitable for both indoor and outdoor.

Disadvantages of full height turnstiles:

 1. Passage width is generally about 550 mm.

 2. Pass speed is relatively slow.

3. Restricted by blocking body, it is not suitable for carrying luggage.

4. Appearance from plasticity is not strong, most style appearance is insufficient.

Applications of full height turnstiles:

All full height turnstile is suitable for unattended and very high-security occasions, as well as some outdoor occasions with a poor environment.

The full height turnstile is suitable for occasions with high demand for traffic orders. Full height turnstiles are mainly used in factories, gymnasiums, construction sites, prisons, enterprises, institutions, railway stations, bus stations, airports, and other places. Its anti-tailing function is particularly strong. At the same time, it is very high. People can’t cross it. It has great security. The community can also use full-height turnstiles, which are relatively stable.

For more details about full height turnstiles, please check our article: what are full height turnstiles?

Speed Gates

Speed gates are an upgraded product of swing turnstile gate, which has a faster traffic speed than swing turnstile gates. It is a highly intelligent pedestrian access control management equipment, which can fully detect the passing of the human body, so it is safe, reliable, fast, and efficient. Similar products have high-cost performance. Widely used in high-end commercial occasions, the lobby of buildings, railway stations, subway stations, scenic spots, etc.

Here we just make a brief introduction. If you want to know more speed gates information, please check our other article: what are speed gates?

Sliding Turnstile

Sliding turnstile is a kind of pedestrian access control turnstile gate based on the parallel linear movement of two baffles in the same or different directions to open and close the door. The sliding turnstile is an electric control automated turnstiles gate, which can be opened and closed manually through buttons, card swiping, and remote control, or fully automatic through face recognition and human body induction. At present, it is commonly used at the entrance gate of various residential areas, enterprises, factories, and other places, which is specially used to control pedestrian access.

SLIDING GATE TURNSTILE features an elegant design, high speed, high security, small noise operation, smooth running, long life span. It’s high integrated to be compatible with face recognition temperature scanner, fingerprints access control, QR system, ESD access control RFID, etc. Being the speed flap barrier, the swing baffle opens automatically when power is off, free for passing for fire/ emergency exit requirements.

Half Height Turnstile

Half height turnstile is a kind of pedestrian turnstile gate with only half the height of the blocking body. The blocking body of the turnstile gate is generally composed of 3 or 4 metal rods. According to the height of the brocking rod, the turnstile gate is divided into full height turnstile and half-height turnstile, and the full height turnstile gate is more widely used. Half-height turnstile adopts a mechanical anti tailing design, which can effectively realize single-person traffic, which means, only one person can pass at a time. Compared with the tripod turnstile gate, the half-height turnstile has higher safety and reliability.

Structural design of half-height turnstile: the blocking rod above the half-height turnstile adopts a removable structural design, which is easy to install and transport.

Characteristics of half-height turnstile: strong waterproof and dustproof ability and strong environmental adaptability.

Application of half-height turnstile: half height turnstile is suitable for occasions requiring high traffic order, such as gymnasium, prison, etc. It is also suitable for residential areas, scenic spots, factories, exhibition halls, and other indoor and outdoor occasions.

Working principle of turnstiles:

The turnstiles are a kind of gate equipment commonly used in pedestrian passage. The turnstiles organically integrate mechanical, electronic, microprocessor control, and various identification technologies, and realize the multi-functional entrance and exit management requirements by selecting and configuring different access control systems, visitor systems, and biometric systems.

The main working principle is to manually control the operation of the blocking body and the mechanical limit to control the stop of the turnstile mechanism, The semi-automatic type turnstile controls the operation and stop of the mechanism through the electromagnet, the full-automatic type turnstile controls the operation and stop of the movement through the motor, and further controls the opening and closing of the blocking body by controlling the operation and stop of the mechanism.

When a person passes through the pedestrian turnstiles, if the person does not leave and passes through the infrared detector, the buzzer will give an alarm and the door will remain closed. If an unauthorized pedestrian enters the turnstile detection area in reverse when the turnstile is opened, the gate of the pedestrian turnstiles will be closed immediately.

working principle of the electromagnet:

The basic principle of types of turnstiles is to control the transmission structure through the power source, combined with the control module and detection module embedded in the intelligent pedestrian turnstile gate. The semi-automatic type turnstile is to control the operation and stop of the mechanism through the electromagnet. So let’s introduce the working principle of the electromagnet:

When the electromagnet is energized, a current passes through the coil to generate a magnetic field, which makes the magnetic field act on the iron core to produce action. After being energized, it can produce magnetism and make the magnetic field act on the iron core to produce action.

Electromagnets are classified by a purpose:

1. Traction electromagnet

2. Frame electromagnet

3. Self-holding electromagnet

4. Suction cup electromagnet

5. Tubular electromagnet

Structural Composition of Turnstiles:

The basic components of the turnstile gate include turnstile chassis, blocking rod, turnstile controller, turnstile mechanism, control module, and auxiliary module. If you want to know about this part, please check: the turnstile components

Application Occasions of Turnstiles:

The application occasions of types of turnstiles are indoor and outdoor. The indoor and outdoor environment is different, and the applicable turnstile gate is also different. If you want to know more about turnstiles for the outdoor environment, please check our article: outdoor turnstile

All types of turnstiles are suitable for indoor use.

Outdoor use is completely open-air or with shelter, but the outdoor harsh environment such as sunlight, rain, sand, and dust, ultra-high temperature, ultra-low temperature, and large temperature difference between day and night need to be considered. The outdoor turnstile needs to be able to withstand these weather problems. The applicable turnstile gates include an outdoor swing turnstile gate, outdoor flap barrier gate, semi-automatic tripod turnstile gate, and semi-automatic full height turnstile specially designed for outdoor use.

Basic requirements of outdoor turnstile: waterproof and dustproof grade IP65, high-temperature resistance, low-temperature resistance, and anti-sunlight interference. Outdoor swing turnstile gate, outdoor flap barrier gate, semi-automatic tripod turnstile gate, and semi-automatic full-height turnstile gate can be realized through special customization.

Advanced demand for outdoor turnstile: shared by people and vehicles, anti-violent brake collision. On some occasions, pedestrians may ride bicycles, push strollers, sit in wheelchairs, etc. the outdoor flap barrier, semi-automatic tripod turnstile, and semi-automatic full height turnstile can not meet this demand. People and vehicles can share the outdoor swing turnstile. In addition, the turnstile gate is likely to be hit by bicycles, so it needs to have the function of an anti-violent collision.

Auxiliary System of Turnstiles:

At present, the most common systems supporting the turnstile gate are the access control system and the ticketing system. We have a special article to introduce these related contents. Please check: the turnstile ticketing system and How does QR code turnstile work

In the access control system, the earliest blocking method is the electric control door, but the electric control door can not effectively pass through only one person at a time, and the use occasions are relatively limited due to the limitations of structure and form; Switching to pedestrian turnstile gate machine can solve these problems, especially at the entrance and exit of buildings or closed geographical areas. It is very suitable to use a turnstile gate machine as the blocking equipment of the access control system. Such as intelligent buildings, government agencies, enterprise parks, communities, factories, prisons, etc.

The ticket checking part of the ticketing system is closely related to the turnstile gate. As long as it is non-manual automatic ticket checking, it is inseparable from the pedestrian turnstile gate. The two most typical application types are rail transit and electronic tickets. Rail transit, including subway and high-speed railway, no longer regards the pedestrian turnstile gate as an independent product, but as a part of the automatic ticket checking machine; Electronic tickets mainly refer to the automatic entrance ticket checking used in various paid entertainment occasions, including scenic spots, amusement parks, gymnasiums, ski resorts, entertainment venues, etc.

Of course, different types of turnstiles, according to the application site, can also be divided into many different types of turnstiles, such as gym turnstiles, construction turnstiles, subway turnstile, train turnstile, office turnstiles, library turnstiles, supermarket turnstile, etc. we won’t explain it in detail here.

Above is a brief introduction about the types of turnstiles, and the advantages and disadvantages of each types of turnstiles. Different types of turnstiles are used in different situations. You also can check how Wikipedia defines turnstile.

Sharing this: