turnstile

Turnstiles at Alewife subway station in Cambridge, Massachusetts

A turnstile, also called a baffle gate, is a form of gate which allows one person to pass at a time. It can also be made so as to enforce one-way traffic of people, and in addition, it can restrict passage only to people who insert a coin, a ticket, a pass, or similar. Thus a turnstile can be used in the case of paid access (sometimes called a faregate when used for this purpose), for example public transport as a ticket barrier or a pay toilet, or to restrict access to authorized people, for example in the lobby of an office building.

Turnstiles are used at a wide variety of settings, including stadiums, amusement parks, museums, mass transit stations, office lobbies, retail sites, cafeterias, temporary exhibits, casinos and souvenir stands, to name but a few.

Benefits

From a business/revenue standpoint, turnstiles enable a venue to have an accurate, verifiable count of total attendance. From a security standpoint, they lead patrons to enter single-file, so security personnel have a clear view of each patron. This enables security to efficiently isolate potential trouble or to confiscate any prohibited materials. Thus, turnstiles are a tool which leads to a more safe and secure atmosphere throughout a site.

History and applications

A British turnstile used for public events in the late 1880s

Turnstiles were originally used, like other forms of stile, to allow human beings to pass whilst keeping sheep or other livestock penned in. The use of turnstiles in most modern applications has been credited to Clarence Saunders, who used them in his first Piggly Wiggly store.

A modern Skidata turnstile at Legoland Windsor. The user inserts a ticket or pass into the orange slot, from which a barcode is read; if access is to be granted, a sensor determines the speed with which the user passes through, and sets the electric motor to turn the turnstile at the corresponding speed.

Turnstiles often use ratchet mechanisms to allow the rotation of the stile in one direction allowing ingress but preventing rotation in the other direction. They are often designed to operate only after a payment has been made, usually by inserting a coin or token in a slot; or by swiping, or inserting, a paper ticket or electronically encoded card.

Turnstiles are often used for counting the numbers of people passing through a gate, even where payment is not involved. They are used extensively in this manner in amusement parks, in order to keep track of how many people enter and exit the park and ride each ride. The first major use of turnstiles at a sporting venue was at Hampden Park in Glasgow, Scotland. It is common for entry to public lavatories in the United Kingdom to be controlled by turnstiles.

Types of turnstiles

Waist-high

Sometimes also referred to as "half-height" turnstiles, this fixed arm style has traditionally been the most popular type of turnstile. There are many variations of this style available, including one which is designed to be accompanied by a matching ticket box, and one with a ticket box built in. Some styles are designed to allow entry only after a payment (actual coins and tokens) are inserted, while others allow access after a valid barcode is electronically read.

Optical

Optical turnstiles are an alternative to the traditional "arm"-style turnstile and are increasingly used in locations where a physical barrier is deemed unnecessary or unaesthetic. Optical turnstiles generally use an infrared beam to count patrons and recognize anyone attempting to enter a site without a valid entry pass.

HEET turnstile

Full-height turnstiles

The High Entrance/Exit Turnstile (HEET), or full-height turnstile, is a larger version of the turnstile, commonly 7-foot (2.1 m) high, similar in operation to a revolving door, which eliminates the possibility (inherent in the waist-high style) of anyone jumping over a turnstile unit. It is also known as an "iron maiden", after the medieval torture device of the same name, or as "high-wheel".^[1] It is sometimes called a "Rotogate", especially in Chicago, where it is used at unstaffed exits of El stations. In Europe, however, "Rotogate" refers to a different kind of gate that is not a turnstile.

Turnstiles in Russia

Instead of enclosing all bus and streetcar stops and providing them with faregates, Moscow authorities in the early 2000s resorted to installing turnstiles inside each bus and streetcar, right inside the front door.

In the public transportation systems of the Soviet Union, the only common use of turnstiles was at the entrance to subway stations (first introduced in Moscow Metro on November 7, 1958^[2]). City buses and commuter trains usually operated on the honor system. But as fare collection became a more pressing business in post-Soviet Russia, railway terminals and high-traffic railway station in the Moscow area, Nizhny Novgorod and elsewhere had turnstiles installed.

In the early 2000s, Moscow authorities went one step further in their quest to improve fare collection: since enclosing all bus and Tram stops and providing them with fare gates would not be feasible, the authorities resorted to installing turnstiles inside each city bus and Tram. This practice has caused numerous passenger complaints as it reduced the speed of boarding, compared to the traditional honor system. A similar system is in use in Brazilian city buses.

Electronic turnstiles

The first electronic barriers were developed by OMRON of Japan.

See also

• optical turnstile

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Turnstiles

• Page showing various designs of turnstiles in the history of the New York subway system.