PAS 68 & IWA 14-1: The International Picture

PAS 68: the British benchmark

PAS 68 was developed by BSI with the UK's security services as the reference impact test for hostile vehicle mitigation, and successive editions (through PAS 68:2013) certified the barriers protecting UK government, transport, and city-center sites. Like ASTM F2656 it is a full-scale crash test with a defined vehicle, speed, and angle — but its reporting format is richer and stricter in places: the classification string reports the measured penetration figure itself rather than a banded class, and major vehicle debris dispersion is recorded.

A PAS 68 classification reads like this (structure, not a real certification):

V/7500[N3]/80/90:1.6/5.0 — vehicle test; 7,500 kg vehicle of class N3 (heavy goods); 80 km/h impact; 90° angle; 1.6 m penetration; 5.0 m major debris distance. The penetration datum is the rear of the payload area measured against the attack face of the barrier — comparable in intent to ASTM's cargo-bed datum, though defined differently in detail.

IWA 14-1: the merger

By the early 2010s, global specifiers faced parallel British and American standards with different vehicles and datums. IWA 14-1:2013, Vehicle security barriers — Part 1: Performance requirement, vehicle impact test method and performance rating, was developed through the ISO workshop process to merge the two: it draws its test vehicle specifications from both PAS 68 and ASTM F2656 and defines a single classification format. Its companion IWA 14-2 covers selection, installation, and use — the operational guidance side.

An IWA 14-1 classification has the same skeleton: V/7200[N3C]/80/90:1.0 — 7,200 kg N3C rigid truck, 80 km/h, 90°, 1.0 m penetration. The IWA vehicle masses differ from PAS 68's in several classes (7,200 kg vs. 7,500 kg for the heavy rigid, for example), which is exactly the kind of detail that breaks casual “equivalent to” claims.

The IWA was always intended as a bridge document; its content has since been carried into the ISO 22343 series (ISO 22343-1 test method, 22343-2 application), which is the designation new international projects increasingly cite. Reports referencing PAS 68 and IWA 14-1 remain valid evidence for the configurations they tested.

Comparing across standards — honestly

The temptation on cross-border projects is a tidy equivalence table: M50 = PAS 68 7500/80 = IWA N3C 7200/80. Resist it. The standards differ in vehicle mass and construction, impact angle options, penetration datum definitions, and what must be reported. A defensible specification does one of two things:

• Names one standard and requires certification to it, chosen by the project's jurisdiction; or
• Names the performance need (threat vehicle mass, speed, maximum penetration) and accepts certification to any of the named standards meeting those numbers as tested — with the lab report, not the marketing equivalence, as the evidence.

What the specifier should do

• Let jurisdiction pick the standard: ASTM in the US, ISO 22343 / IWA 14 lineage on international work, PAS 68 where UK authorities require it.
• When comparing candidate barriers tested to different standards, compare the raw test parameters — vehicle mass, speed, measured penetration — never the labels.
• Check the vehicle class in the code. An N1 (light van) certification and an N3 (heavy truck) certification are different products wearing the same brand name.