Effective vehicle mitigation starts with better deployment, reports Hill & Smith Infrastructure.
Securing crowded public spaces has never mattered more.
Effective hostile vehicle mitigation depends not just on certified products but on how they are installed, operated and integrated into the urban environment.
Strengthening these foundations is now central to creating safe, open and resilient public spaces worldwide.
Cities worldwide are preparing for an intense period of global gatherings.
Expo 2025 Osaka, the 2026 World Cup, Euro 2028 and the Los Angeles Olympics will draw millions into urban spaces, while seasonal markets, festivals, transport interchanges and pedestrianised centres continue to attract significant daily footfall.
As these environments grow busier and more permeable, their exposure to vehicle incursions – whether accidental, opportunistic or deliberate – expands accordingly.
Hostile vehicle mitigation (HVM) has become central to securing public spaces, but international experience now shows a critical pattern: The greatest vulnerabilities rarely come from the products themselves, but from how they are installed, operated and integrated into the urban environment.
Around the world, HVM schemes falter when deployment does not reflect tested configurations, when temporary measures are managed without sufficient operational discipline or when long-term urban design fails to incorporate vehicle security from the outset.
These three factors determine whether public spaces remain safe as global events grow in scale and complexity.
Closing the gap
Across Europe’s historic city centres, the rapidly growing Gulf cities, North American sports districts and Asia’s pedestrianised commercial zones, the same challenge appears: HVM schemes often meet international standards on paper but fall short once deployed.
Standards such as ISO 22343-1, IWA 14-1, PAS 68 and ASTM F2656 define impact performance, while the NPSA’s Vehicle Attack Delay Standard (VADS) assesses resistance to repeated low-speed ramming.
In the UK, NPSA and NaCTSO guidance makes clear that temporary barriers should ideally hold both impact and VADS ratings to address the broadest range of threats.
Yet, certified performance relies entirely on reproducing the conditions of the test.
The UK’s national guidance states that systems must be “deployed in the same rated formation” as the configuration tested – an instruction equally relevant in Dubai, Singapore or Los Angeles.
Globally, deviations from tested formations remain common.
Installations may be shortened or fragmented to accommodate space constraints, placed on surfaces that differ from test conditions or arranged in a way that inadvertently leaves bypass routes open.
In some public spaces, barriers sit too close to event boundaries, reducing safe stopping distances. These issues can occur anywhere, indicating a shared international weakness: HVM is only as effective as its installation.
This is why installer competence has become central to global best practice.
Experienced teams understand how to translate test data into viable layouts, account for surface conditions and crowd dynamics and ensure that installed systems genuinely reflect their certified performance.
Without this expertise, risk owners may approve a scheme without assurance that it can withstand the threats it claims to address.
Installation shortcomings become even more acute in temporary environments, where the next major vulnerability lies.
Making security modular and adaptable
Temporary HVM now underpins event security in cities all over the world. Concerts, marathons, markets and fan zones require systems that can be deployed rapidly, adapted throughout the event and dismantled with minimal disruption.
Their flexibility is a strength – but also a risk when operational discipline lags behind.
Temporary environments often carry higher risk than fixed urban settings.
Footfall is dense and unpredictable, authorised vehicle movements are frequent and perimeter lines change throughout the event.
Treating temporary protection as secondary or “good enough” undermines its purpose.
Effective deployment depends on clear operational routines: How often barriers move, who operates them, how openings are supervised and whether stand-off distances remain adequate during surges.
Installations must support wheelchair users, cyclists and families with prams while preventing vehicles from exploiting unprotected gaps. These considerations are universal, regardless of region or crowd culture.
The NPSA/NaCTSO guidance encourages planners to approach temporary schemes as full operational systems, not just products.
Signage, lighting, supervised access points, emergency egress and daily barrier management all contribute to overall performance.
The guidance also stresses the need for an operational requirement based on a Vehicle Dynamics Assessment, which ensures that barrier selection aligns with the credible threats and site constraints.
When temporary protection is installed and managed with this level of rigor, it becomes a reliable asset across international event calendars.
When these foundations are missing, vulnerabilities tend to emerge precisely when crowds are at their peak.
This naturally leads to the third pillar: Long-term design integration.
Embedding security into public spaces from the start
Cities across the world are continuously redesigning their public spaces.
The Middle East is developing new cultural districts and waterfronts; European cities are pedestrianising historic centres; North America is reshaping sports precincts; APAC cities are integrating active travel into dense, vertical urban cores.
These changes bring vitality but also increase exposure to vehicle routes.
Integrating HVM early in the design process ensures that security supports, rather than competes with, public experience.
Collaboration between architects, engineers, emergency services and security specialists resolves issues before they escalate, avoiding later compromises around access, utilities or installation depth.
Globally, authorities are also rethinking how visible protective measures should be.
Many cities now favour approaches that integrate protective capability into seating, planters, landscaping or architectural features, creating public spaces that are both safe and welcoming.
For cities hosting repeated events or undergoing phased redevelopment, semi-permanent systems offer an effective midpoint.
They allow resilience to grow gradually, aligning long-term protection with changing public-realm priorities.
A global opportunity to raise standards
As major events grow in scale and visibility, cities have an opportunity to enhance not only the systems they procure but the practices that underpin them.
Consistent interpretation of international standards, greater emphasis on installation competence and stronger operational planning are becoming essential expectations, not optional enhancements.
Lifecycle thinking – training, maintenance and ongoing operational readiness – must sit alongside procurement.
Temporary and permanent measures should be treated as complementary components of long-term resilience, supporting spaces that are both open and protected.
Equally, by deploying systems exactly as tested, managing them with discipline and embedding security at the design stage, cities can create environments that are safe, adaptable and confident.
The tools already exist.
The challenge now is international consistency – ensuring HVM performs as intended, whatever the city, whatever the event and wherever people gather.
