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Hostile Vehicle Mitigation
Consultants
Vehicle security strategy informed by the Crime Science taxonomy, with threat scenarios and design requirements assessed for your site.
A vehicle attack overseas makes the news. A client asks what the project is doing about hostile vehicles. Within a fortnight, a barrier supplier has quoted, a product is on the civil drawings, and the project has a line of bollards. Whether it has protection is a different question.
The problem
HVM without a threat basis fails in one of three ways
Each failure traces to the same root cause: the project moved to product selection before completing the analysis that product selection depends on.
01
Over-specification
Barriers rated for a 7.5-tonne truck at 80 km/h, installed where approach geometry limits any vehicle to 30 km/h. The project pays for capability it cannot use, and the public realm carries industrial-scale infrastructure that signals threat instead of safety.
02
Under-specification
Decorative bollards where a rated barrier is needed, because nobody assessed the credible threat. They look like protection and provide none. After an incident, the gap between installed and needed becomes a liability question.
03
Misplaced specification
The rated perimeter faces the low-risk frontage while the service road with unrestricted access to the crowd space has a chain and a sign. Placement followed property boundaries, not vulnerability.
The evidence
What the published research covers
135
incidents in the published dataset, covering 2010 to April 2025.
6
attack clusters, spanning different vehicles, motivations and operating contexts.
3
analytical dimensions: temporal attack complexity, tactical sophistication and operational lethality.
The taxonomy supports scenario planning. It does not estimate the probability of an attack at a particular site.
Our project work considers those scenarios alongside access, vehicle dynamics, pedestrian use and operational response.
Ludbey, Versaci, Bharthur and Prabhakaran, Crime Science, February 2026. Read the published paper or our research summary and limitations.
What you get
Advisers, not barrier vendors
We hold no product relationships, which means our recommendations are calibrated to your threat profile, not to a sales margin.
A documented threat basis
The credible vehicle-borne scenarios for your site, characterised by archetype, vehicle class, and approach condition, aligned to ISO 22343-1:2023.
Vulnerability assessed in context
Approach speeds, geometry, crowd dynamics, and the protective value already present in the streetscape.
A vehicle security strategy
Differentiated protection levels with performance requirements the design team can respond to, rather than prescribed products. Where streetscape elements can do the protective work, we say so.
Decision-ready documentation
Every recommendation carries its rationale, so expenditure is defensible to boards, planners, and assurance reviews years after the decision was made.
How we work
Four steps, in order
The sequence matters. Projects that start at step four — product selection — are the projects that end up with bollards instead of protection.
Commissioning
Commissioning an HVM strategy
A permanent public realm and a temporary event can share a site but have different access and crowd conditions. The scope needs to identify which operating modes the strategy must address.
Bring to the first conversation
Bring current site and road layouts, available survey information, crowd locations and operating modes, and servicing or emergency-access requirements. Include any existing vehicle security strategy and the next design milestone.
Agree the scope
Agree the threat assessment, vehicle approach analysis, protection zones and performance requirements needed. Specify whether later design reviews, temporary event arrangements or verification of installed measures are included.
Name the responsibilities
Allocate responsibility for civil and structural design, barrier foundations, utilities, access management and operational procedures. Agree who will demonstrate that the final design meets the strategy's performance requirements.
Proven at precinct scale
Barangaroo Vehicle Security Strategy
One of Australia's most heavily used waterfront precincts: seven sub-precincts, multiple landowners, and design conditions where uniform perimeter hardening would have been technically simple and operationally wrong.
Empirical threat calibration kept design basis vehicles proportionate. Differentiated assessment produced distinct protection philosophies per sub-precinct. The design team received performance targets rather than product lists — including event-mode overlays for high-density gatherings.
Common questions
Frequently asked questions
When should HVM join the project?
At concept or preliminary design. Threat-informed siting, level changes, and street geometry can deliver protection at near-zero marginal cost when they are design moves; the same outcomes retrofitted after design lock-in arrive as rated barriers at a multiple of the cost, with planning and heritage friction added.
Do we need crash-rated barriers?
Sometimes. In the incident data, only around a quarter of attacks involved a barrier being surpassed at all — but where barriers failed, fatalities were several times higher. The honest answer depends on your threat basis: some zones justify rated product, some are adequately protected by geometry and streetscape, and some need operational measures rather than physical ones. We tell you which is which, and why.
What standards and guidance apply in Australia?
The national Hostile Vehicle Guidelines for Crowded Places, vehicle security barrier testing and classification under ISO 22343 (successor to PAS 68 / IWA 14), and NPSA guidance on attack techniques and integrated design. We translate these into project-specific requirements rather than treating compliance as the objective.
What is the difference between VAAW and VBIED protection?
A vehicle-as-a-weapon attack uses the vehicle's mass and speed against people; mitigation denies access or reduces speed to survivable levels. A vehicle-borne IED uses the vehicle to deliver explosives; mitigation is dominated by stand-off distance. Different threats, different analyses, different design responses — a site can face one, both, or neither.
Can HVM be invisible?
Frequently, yes. Seating, planters, level changes, trees, water features, and street furniture can be engineered to provide vehicle restraint while reading as public realm. The best protective outcomes at Barangaroo are ones visitors never register as security.
What does an engagement cost?
It scales with site complexity and the decision at hand — a single-site assessment is a different undertaking from a precinct-wide strategy. Protection integrated at concept stage typically costs a small fraction of the same protection retrofitted. We scope engagements as fixed-fee options against defined outcomes, so the investment is visible before you commit.
Talk to a principal
Thirty minutes with a principal to work out whether the project needs us.