Glossary

Vehicle traffic

Entry in a vehicle entry control system is the record of a vehicle’s visit to the site, from being let in to leaving. It includes the vehicle, the driver, the carrier, the purpose of the visit and the time. Not to be confused with a booking, which is only an advance notice of arrival.

Entry type is the purpose of a vehicle’s visit, for example a raw material delivery, a service visit or a waste collection. In TraxSystem the entry type drives the vehicle’s whole route through the site: which fields are required, whether weighing is needed, how many document scans are needed and how long the vehicle occupies the dock. It is the most important configuration concept in the whole system.

Dwell time is the time a vehicle spends on site, counted from entry to exit. Once the set threshold is exceeded, TraxSystem closes the visit automatically and a reason is recorded.

One-way gate is a gate that handles traffic in one direction only, used separately for entry and for exit. In TraxSystem automatic opening based on an access rule works only on this kind of gate, and a two-way gate always requires the operator’s decision.

ANPR, sometimes LPR, is automatic number plate recognition from a camera image. With edge recognition, the plate is read by a device at the gate, without the server or an external service.

YMS, or yard management system, is software for managing vehicle traffic on an industrial site: from booking and entry control, through dock allocation, to exit. It does not run the warehouse or transport on the road. TraxSystem covers the YMS scope and adds access control for people, the weighbridge and the railway siding; this is described on the yard management system page.

Bookings and docks

Booking (delivery booking) is an advance notice of a vehicle’s arrival: when it will come, why and to which dock. In TraxSystem an entry is only created from a booking at the gate, and a booking the vehicle never arrived for is closed by the system as a no-show after a set time.

Time slot is the period for which a carrier books a dock. Its length depends on the entry type, because unloading a tanker takes a different amount of time from collecting pallets.

Preparation and clean-up time are the periods before and after a time slot during which the dock bay is occupied even though no vehicle is standing at it. If they are not taken into account, the calendar promises more than the site can handle.

Carrier portal is a separate application for a haulage company, with its own accounts. The carrier sees the free slots and its own bookings there, but not anyone else’s, and it never enters the site’s system.

Kiosk is a self-service device at the gate where drivers, in their own language, report their arrival, enter their details, scan documents and complete the induction.

Access control, cards and contractors

Access control is the supervision of people passing through readers, turnstiles and doors. In TraxSystem it keeps a log that is independent of the vehicle entry log, including in permissions.

Electronic gatehouse means running the gate and reception in the system rather than in paper books: the entry log, records of visitors, cards and keys, and a list of people on site. In TraxSystem it combines the entry log with the access control module; this is described on the electronic gatehouse page.

Access rule is a record that defines who may pass where and when. It can be limited by a time schedule and a date range.

Offline card is a card stored in the controller’s memory that keeps working after the connection to the server is lost. Only its date range applies; the time schedule does not work in this mode.

Point type is the setting of an access control point that determines the direction of passage: in or out. A turnstile has two readers, and they decide whether a card read is an entry or an exit. The system does not work out the direction from whether the person is already on site.

PassBack, or anti-passback control, is a safeguard that prevents the same card from being used twice in a row in the same direction. It stops a card being handed back over the fence.

Time and attendance, often shortened to T&A, is the record of employees’ hours at work. In TraxSystem it is built from the same reader passages as access control and gives attendance time, without calculating pay.

Work list (also called a contractor list) is a list of a contractor’s staff admitted to the site for the duration of one contract. It contains the company, the date range, the target site and a named roster of people, and access expires with the end date, without anything having to be withdrawn by hand.

Temporary worker pool is the set of cards issued to people on work lists, kept separately from the visitor card pool. Each card carries its own permission role, belongs to one person at any given time and returns to the pool when the work ends.

Card assignment is reserving a card from the pool for a specific person on a work list. In TraxSystem the pass office does this, and an assigned card is already taken but does not yet open any passage.

Card handover is giving the card in person to the person it was assigned to, which reception does. Only the handover activates the card at the readers, and it is recorded together with the name of the person who handed it over.

Working day limit is the maximum number of days on which the same person may work as a temporary worker within a set reference period. TraxSystem counts it from the date ranges of the lists the person appears on, and once it is exceeded it does not allow them to be added to another list.

Safety and security

General induction is the health and safety induction for people entering the site, drivers included. It is not the same as an employee’s job-specific induction.

Evacuation list is a list of the people on site at the moment the alarm is raised, frozen in a snapshot, to tick off at the assembly point. It covers only people registered in the system.

Checkpoint is a point on a patrol route confirmed with a proximity tag or by position on the map. A timestamped scan is proof that the patrol went there.

Duty log is the record of security entries from every shift. In TraxSystem it is electronic and replaces the paper book, and each entry is tied to a user account and a shift.

Lone working is a situation in which an employee carries out a task alone and confirms contact on a set cycle. A check-in confirms contact with the employee, but does not check their location.

Site ban is a management decision that bars a specific person from entering the site, or a specific vehicle from driving onto it, recorded in the ban register. In TraxSystem a ban does not close the barrier automatically: it shows the operator a warning.

Random inspection is selecting people for checks with a set probability, with a record of why each person was picked. It only makes sense when nobody can influence it.

Weighing and documents

Two-stage weighing is weighing a vehicle on entry and on exit, with the mass of the goods worked out from the difference between the two weighings. It replaces subtracting the tare by hand.

Automatic weighing is weighing without an operator: the system reads the weighbridge display and links the reading to the recognised vehicle.

Weighbridge ticket is the record of a weighing linked to a specific entry, which can be exported.

Required number of scans is an entry type setting that determines how many document scans the driver must attach before going any further. When an arrival covers several docks, the highest of the required values applies.

Rail traffic

UIC number is the international identification number of a wagon, the same one that appears in the transport documents.

Wagon list is the list of wagons making up a train, with their contents and mass.

Train formation is putting a train together from the wagons standing on the site’s tracks.

Technical and legal matters

Visibility scope is the setting that determines which data a user sees: which sites and which entry types. It also applies in reports and exports. Not to be confused with permissions, which say what a user can do.

Data controller is the organisation that decides on the purposes and means of processing personal data. In the case of TraxSystem, that is the plant that uses the system.

Data processor is an organisation that processes personal data on behalf of the controller. With a cloud deployment of TraxSystem, that is the system supplier, EROW.

Retention is a rule that defines how long data is kept. When the period ends, the data is deleted or anonymised.

Anonymisation is the irreversible replacement of personal data with values that do not allow the person to be identified.

Two-server operation is an arrangement in which a second server takes over when the first one fails. It is not a backup or a disaster recovery plan.

Seat in TraxSystem pricing means one concurrent session, regardless of who is logged in. There can be any number of user accounts.

Missing a term? Write to us and we will add it.

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