Duty is running time, not cycles
Operator makers state duty in two different ways and they are not interchangeable. A percentage is the share of an hour the motor may run. Cycles per hour is a count. Which one binds depends entirely on the travel time: a slow gate reaches a percentage limit long before it reaches a cycle count, and a fast one does the opposite.
On the defaults — 40 vehicles an hour, 15 seconds of travel, 20 percent tailgating and 5 percent restarts — the gate runs 1,008 seconds of the hour, which is 28 percent of it, over 33.6 cycles. Change nothing but the travel time to 40 seconds and the same traffic runs the motor for 75 percent of the hour. The vehicles did not change and neither did the cycle count, which is still 33.6.
Tailgating and restarts pull in opposite directions
Two things separate vehicle count from cycle count. Vehicles that follow somebody through on the same opening cost no cycle at all, which is what a safety loop and a generous hold time between them allow. Cycles that get interrupted and restarted cost an extra one each, which is what a beam crossed by a dog, a cyclist or a reversing van produces.
Both are entered as percentages because both are site facts rather than equipment facts. A yard where everybody knows the gate has a high tailgate rate. A gate on a footpath crossing has a high restart rate. The same operator on the same traffic count will show a different duty at the two sites.
Why a gate that was fine becomes intolerable
The queue does not grow in proportion to the traffic. It grows with utilisation, and it does it in a curve that is nearly flat and then nearly vertical. With the defaults the gate can pass 107 vehicles an hour and is being asked for 40, which is 37 percent utilisation and an average wait of 10 seconds before the gate even starts to move for you. Take the same gate to 75 vehicles an hour and utilisation is 70 percent, and the queue wait is 39 seconds — nearly four times as long for under twice the traffic.
The page prints a table across a range of peak hours so the shape of that curve is visible for your own gate. That shape is why the complaint arrives suddenly, years after installation, with nothing about the gate having changed. It is also why the fix is almost never a bigger motor.
Travel time is the only lever that helps everything
Cutting the hold time reduces the service time per vehicle and the queue, and increases the cycle count because fewer vehicles get through together. Cutting the travel time reduces the motor running time, the duty, the service time and the queue, all at once, and it does not increase anything. It is the only input on this page that improves every output.
It is also the hardest to change, because it is set by the leaf weight, the length, and the operator speed. That is the real argument for a slide gate over a swing on a busy entrance, and for two leaves over one: the travel is shorter and everything downstream of it improves.
What the queue numbers assume
They assume arrivals are random and independent, which is the standard queueing model and not how a gate behaves. Real traffic bunches. Three vehicles arrive together at shift change and nothing comes for twenty minutes, and a bunched pattern produces longer waits than a random one at the same hourly count. So the waiting figures here are a floor. If the queue matters — because it reaches a road, or because people are late — count it at the worst time of day rather than trusting a model.
None of this touches the part that matters most about a powered gate, which is that it is a heavy moving structure with enough force to hurt somebody. What limits that force, what senses an obstruction, what has to be marked and what has to be tested are set by standards and rules adopted where you are and by the operator maker. Counting cycles says nothing about any of it.
Questions people ask
What does duty cycle mean on a gate operator?
It is a limit on how much of an hour the motor may run, and makers state it either as a percentage of running time or as a count of cycles per hour. The two are not the same limit. A slow gate hits the percentage first and a fast gate hits the cycle count first, so which figure binds depends on your travel time. The page compares your traffic against whichever one the data sheet gives.
How many cycles a day does a driveway gate do?
Fewer than the vehicle count, usually. Vehicles that follow another through on the same opening cost no cycle, and interrupted cycles that restart cost an extra one. On the defaults, 160 vehicles a day comes to about 134 cycles. Over a year that is around 49,000, which is why cycle life figures in the hundreds of thousands mean one thing at a house and another at a yard.
Why do cars queue at my gate when it is not that busy?
Because waiting time depends on utilisation rather than on the raw count, and it rises steeply as utilisation climbs. On the defaults the gate is at 37 percent of what it could pass and the average queue wait is 10 seconds. Take it to 70 percent and the wait is 39 seconds, from under twice the traffic. Between 70 and 85 percent it multiplies by another 2.4. It is the shape of the curve, not a fault in the gate.
Will a faster gate operator fix a queue?
Shorter travel time is the only change that improves everything at once: less motor running time, lower duty, less time the gate is busy per vehicle and a shorter queue. Cutting the hold time helps the queue and raises the cycle count, because fewer vehicles get through on one opening. A bigger motor with the same travel time changes nothing about the queue at all.
How long will a gate operator last?
Divide the cycle life figure on the data sheet by your cycles a year, which is what this page does. Treat the answer as an upper bound on the motor and gearbox only. The hinges, the chain or rack, the posts and the leaf itself are on their own schedules, the published life figure is a headline rather than a warranty, and a gate in a coastal yard full of grit does not follow the same curve as one on a quiet lane.