If you were to judge CCTV solely on the press it receives, you might think it’s a technology that doesn’t pull its weight.
A local paper might complain that a shop theft couldn’t be investigated because police lacked the resources to scan 18 hours of footage. Then comes a headline saying that Home Office research* found that many Government-funded CCTV schemes had not yielded the hoped-for crime reductions.
But dig a little deeper and a different picture emerges. The UK CCTV market is the strongest in Europe and 70% of UK organisations plan to increase their take-up of CCTV over the next three years. If we’re putting so much investment into CCTV, we must be firmly convinced of its worth. And while the recent Home Office research into town centre schemes did recommend a need for realistic objectives, good management and staff support, it was positive about CCTV technology overall.
Tuning into a better view
Holding some systems back is a reliance on legacy technology, which can’t always meet modern demands. But with the aid of current technology and good implementation, CCTV can be a powerful tool for deterring crime. For organisations who apply CCTV effectively, it can lower the incidence of crime both at their premises and against their customers.
“Understanding the objectives of the system, deployment of cameras, well-trained operators and clear communication links with the police are all crucial to the overall effectiveness of systems,” says David Dickinson, British Security Industry Association Chief Executive. “This joined-up approach can have exceptional results.”
Taking just such a joined-up route is North Lanarkshire Council, which uses the IP (Internet Protocol) CCTV solution now available from Virgin Media Business via a Metro Ethernet VPN (Virtual Private Network). The Council is implementing one of the largest IP CCTV solutions in Europe, a £3m investment, tying in its new Central Monitoring Unit to CCTV schemes throughout the North Lanarkshire region.
The council completely recognises the value of CCTV. In fact, it’s public demand for cameras that’s moved the project forward, says Emma Walker, Project Manager at North Lanarkshire CCTV Ltd, which monitors, manages and administers the public space CCTV network on behalf of North Lanarkshire Council. “One of the biggest criteria for us in upgrading the system was future expansion,” says Emma. “Historically, our cameras have been monitored from four police stations around North Lanarkshire and we were limited by the capacity within the stations. The new 2Gb system allows us to scale up from our current 235 cameras to as many as 440. There’s always a demand for more cameras and the flexibility of the system means we won’t need to go through this process again a few years down the line.”
Flexibility is the major benefit of an IP-based system, explains Matt McCloskey, Senior Manager, Application and Services at Virgin Media Business. “Adding cameras requires more bandwidth, but this can be done remotely, as opposed to having to lay a piece of fibre from the new camera back to where you view it. Essentially, customers can bring any number of new cameras online, as they’re needed.”
No more chunky cassettes or scanning hours of footage
Network resilience was another important factor in North Lanarkshire’s decision. “We were looking at reducing downtime,” says Emma. “And this solution includes a dual fibre infrastructure. So if there are any problems the system is self-healing and data will be routed around the affected areas.” To ensure nothing is missed, the system has other tricks up its sleeve. Data from cameras can be stored in local memory for as long as you specify and in the rare event of any interruption, the main system will request this missing data automatically once the network is repaired. Storage to disk replaces storage to great big cassettes and eliminates the hours and hours of hunting for a single incident amid hours of footage. “You just go to the terminal or access the server remotely and say ‘I want to see this camera at this time’”, says Matt. “Done!”
The IP network offers the Council other long-term benefits. The Ethernet infrastructure allows both combined operability across North Lanarkshire CCTV and central monitoring of the council network allowing CCTV pictures. “We now have the opportunity to link the key sites, the education network and housing departments,” Emma adds. “We know the capabilities of the IP CCTV solution and these will be fully realised.”
Emma can also set up activities and behaviour prompts that raise an alert of potential threats. For example, if a piece of luggage is abandoned in a city centre or a car pulls up to a sensitive location, these actions can trigger alarms that warn control room staff.
Proactive face recognition technology can be linked to databases, helping to pinpoint the location of people thought to be a potential threat. Also useful is the ability to view images at one quality and store them at another. You can view with a high frame-per-second ratio for smooth, steady real-time footage, for example, while archiving at a lower rate to save on storage space. In short, IP CCTV provides a versatile toolbox from which to assemble your perfect surveillance system. The fact that the solution can incorporate “anything that’s got a camera on it,” according to Matt, means that there’s no need for a complete overhaul to access the benefits of digital CCTV.
“There are 4.25 million cameras in the UK,” concludes Matt. “But there aren’t 4.25 million people watching them. Our approach is all about making those existing cameras more effective.”
*Assessing the impact of CCTV, Home Office research study 292, 2005
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