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## Success story

# BarrierSystems integrates Cerbos into smart vehicle access gates, cutting internal costs by 15%  
Using Cerbos to manage access policies, BarrierSystems was able to improve user experience and simplify their own policy management workflows to enable consistent and reliable access control for their customers.

75% fewer support tickets related to authZ

Faster time to market with new features

Improved scalability

“Our existing structure was inconsistent, making it difficult to track and manage permissions across diverse customer needs. We needed a system that offered both clarity and scalability.“  
[Aaron Maier, Lead Software Developer at BarrierSystems\

### Summary

BarrierSystems is a software product that turns physical gate mechanisms into smart gates. By adding one of their sensor devices to the gate, any controlled entry point can be equipped with automatic vehicle screening and authorization, based on pre-defined authorization rules. BarrierSystems used Cerbos to externalize authorization for easier policy management, achieving a 15% decrease in customer issues, and decreasing associated internal costs by 15% as a result.

Fine grained, contextual, continuous authorization for enterprise software and AI

[Try Cerbos Hub](/content/product-cerbos-hub/index.html)  
BarrierSystems integrates Cerbos into smart vehicle access gates, cutting internal costs by 15% - YouTube.

# Introduction

BarrierSystems is a “smart access management solution” for restricted traffic areas in corporate complexes and cities. Their sensor devices recognize vehicle license plates and models, and their web-based software application is used to grant or deny each vehicle access to the controlled area. The software shows the state of all barriers at any given time. Access policies can be programmed to each physical barrier, as well as managed centrally.

“Cities in Germany and Switzerland have been implementing smart barriers as part of their counter-terrorism initiatives.”, Aaron explains, “They can use our software to restrict access to protected areas to only official vehicles.”

[...]Different authorization policies are required for the people using and managing the software versus the ones who are controlling the barriers. [...]A vehicle is only allowed to enter during certain time periods, gate officers are only allowed control over the gate during their shift. And admins shouldn’t just be given blanket access to open and close gates just because they are an admin.

# Business needs

- RBAC and ABAC for their claims-based authorization system  
- Clear documentation of authorization policies  
- Ability to work across the front end and back end

[...]They needed better documentation of their policies and easier management of policy implementation in their software and across each of their client instances.

For BarrierSystems’ customers, access policies are always temporary by default, and location-specific.

[...]

# Evaluation

[...]“Having the same policy file that is used for the actual authorization also be useful for documenting what permissions are allowed in what circumstances greatly simplified our workflow,” said Aaron.

[...]They also were happy to find that switching their policy management over fully to Cerbos created zero issues for their customers.

# Results

- 75% fewer support tickets related to authorization  
- Faster time to market with new features  
- Improved scalability

[...]

In the near future, BarrierSystems plans to scale the Cerbos implementation to support a more sophisticated multi-tenant client setup.

### Related links

- [Learn more about BarrierSystems](https://www.barriersystems.de/)  
- [Learn more about Cerbos for multi-tenant systems](/content/features-benefits-and-use-cases/multi-tenant-saas/index.html)