Such a command center can be easily established today, thanks to the advancement of technology. If truth be told, these revolutionary hardware and software products are being used at critical applications all around the world. For instance, they greatly assist in supervising the subways in France, in Portugal, they keep an eye on thousand kilometers of motorways, protecting the city center of Annecy, France, from vandalism and crime, and offering a cohesive surveillance and security solution at airports all around the globe.

Restricted initial Reaction

The surveillance enterprise has already provided ingenious hard work to bring ever-increasing levels of security to public transit as well as aviation. However, they are no more than the beginning to a greater leadership national commitment to homeland security and the issues pertaining to it. Despite the fact that some systems and solutions have performed well in niche markets, what's been truly needed is a dedication of integrating the variety and depth of homeland security technologies and solutions that already are on hand. The recently initiated approaches to homeland security must be based on the belief that individual equipment, incorporated as an afterthought, is less effective and costlier than a single incorporated product.

The destination of First Responders

The requirement for an incorporated, clever command center comes from the current restricted capacity of first-response agencies, such as law enforcement, fire departments and medical organizations, to rapidly evaluate major events as they happen and decide on the level and type of response required under tense settings. The need to quickly gather information, assess the severity of the situation and plan a coordinated response remains the same regardless of whether these situations  are environmental (including floods and tornados) or man made (such as terrorist attacks, protests or riots).

The requirement for such a centralized viewing potential for first responders is worldwide in all metropolitan settings. For instance, hurricane Katrina and The London bombings clearly stress the types of situations first responders are up against in trying to assess what is happening or has happened, and taking the appropriate action to defend the general public of a county or city.

The difference between an informed and coordinated first response and a delayed and confused fiasco can be decided by ability to centralize and use a variety of camera systems located throughout a city and owned by different agencies such as the Department of Transportation, the Port Authority and even the private division.

The systems presently used that integrate hardware and software solutions enable such integration and centralization is to be carried out effectively. This can significantly help law enforcement officials and other first responders to evaluate and respond to critical events at the moment of their occurrence.

Through utilizing this technology, first responders will be able to control current infrastructure, such as disparate camera systems, as well as deploy a product over a wide area via a fiber network while still keeping prices in check. For that reason police agencies, county and city governments, as well as fire and medical agencies must be aware of the fact that such a technology is available in our day and age. The solution is uncomplicated to operate via an application suite and also is scalable, meeting present and future needs of any municipality and its responding organizations.

Supplying Management and Authority

 
The solution that is required is a comprehensive smart video platform that provides optimal networking performance and also leverages presently installed systems as well as infrastructure equipment. This type of system, the GE VisioWave Intelligent Video Panel was obtained by GE in about two years ago and has been successfully installed throughout Europe for several years and is now extensively available Throughout the North and South American continents.

Along with its numerous applications, the panel currently offers video surveillance for Paris' subway system, traffic control and video surveillance for Brisa motorways in Portugal, urban observation for numerous cities in France, including Lyon and Nice, and monitoring for the Madrid-Barcelona high-speed train, as well as London's Heathrow Airport and Toronto's Pearson Airport.

The necessities also require for an intelligent architecture that balance between existing infrastructure systems and equipment, such as CCTV keyboards and dome cameras from a diversity of suppliers. Such a system can monitor system health and analyze live or recorded video streams to automatically report camera performance across the network supported by an optional embedded advanced video content analysis and with a unique open architecture. It also alerts command center workers to video loss, displaced cameras, obstructed views, cameras out of focus, or blocked cameras.

The panel also consists of a series of software and hardware elements, including video operating software, digital video encoders, decoders and recorders that have a high capacity and high frames per second, long-term central and distributed storage devices.

Enhanced Incorporation is Possible by Digital Systems

 
The fact of the matter is that digital video systems are much more flexible and easily allow the addition of new functionalities such as video content analysis for intelligent security applications, which gives them a great advantage compared to analog systems. It becomes possible to detect incidents in real time and sometimes even before an event gets serious, with such incorporated digital systems. for instance, picture how essential it can be to perceive smoke before a fire gets out of hand, detect breaks in a dam before it collapses the whole structure or spot a person in a place people shouldn't be, and mark a host of similar incidents.

Armed and Ready

 
Extensive installations of compound video solutions demonstrate that such systems operate well, even with thousands of cameras, at geographically isolated sites throughout an enormous transportation system such as the subways in Paris. A small number of of the thriving installations all around the world give a sample of how such a video surveillance solution performs and can be the keystone for the control administration in the few coming years.

Our first analysis is in Portugal. Private motorway operator, called Brisa, is punt in charge for monitoring the operation of more than 1,000 kilometers of motorways which connect Portugal from west to east and north to south. Brisa's system has the ability to supervise close to one hundred live video streams, five hundred PTZ cameras and incorporated video traffic inspection, including automatic incident recognition with alarm administration.

The video footages are captured from the legacy analog PTZ cameras and are automatically digitized, compressed and encoded. The visual media streams are then moved across the IP network and can be observed in local operations centers or in the central procedures coordination site.

The digital video surveillance of Brisa, automatic incident detection and traffic control system depends on an industrial Ethernet IP infrastructure network made up of a gigabit Ethernet over fiber-optics transport backbone with one entry location in each of the ninety operations centers along the motorway layout, and an Ethernet access network for the connection of the equipment in every operations site.

Moving to another location, Annecy, France. Annecy offers a very attractive environment to companies due to its reputation as an economically-active city. The capital of the Haute-Savoie is thought of as a business center and is situated on the lake of Annecy, where tourism is very vibrant.

The council of Annecy decided to implement a video surveillance system in the city center in order to reduce degradations, insecurity, delinquency, and infractions. The authorities chose a fully distributed digital solution to be dispatched through the city's new gigabit metropolitan area network especially due to the cost savings and scalability components.

The solution offers an entirely comprehensive, high-quality digital video monitoring interface. The open design, allowing for the incorporation of video handling application or added value content distribution services, networking abilities and video switching were obligatory components. Along with the French cities of Lyon, Bordeaux and Nice, Annecy joins in selecting such a solution that would address all concerns.

Another aspect can be viewed when examining the deployments in, Paris, France. A popular public establishment there is called RATP, its main purposes span industrial and commercial procedures. This establishment is primarily accountable for the lIe-de-France Transport Authority for the administration of the Parisian civic transport establishments. RATP administers close to 2.6 billion trips on a yearly basis. In order to decrease insecurity, RATP made the decision to deploy a more-powerful and more-effective video surveillance system.

This infrastructure was also established to play a key role in the commuters' flow control and administration. The digital video supervision program joins eight thousand cameras deployed across four hundred locations through a distinctive ATM network infrastructure for data services, telephony and video surveillance using dispersed video system design.

This popular digital video surveillance was part of a global reflection at RATP, as well as the infrastructure of their new multi-service ATM backbone interface. The solution offers a high-quality digital video surveillance system which is also fully distributed, matching RATP's requirements in terms of video switching and recording, incorporation of audio abilities, alarms administration, video processing, ability to incorporate and guard existing equipments and cleverly balance the RATP ATM primary network QoS competence.

On the other hand, in Spain we get another different view. The product offers digital video monitoring of the high-speed railway between Madrid and Barcelona, as well as via an ATM interface. The system is composed of more than eight hundred cameras for stations and rail tracks and more than forty monitors located in five management sites.
he actual cameras are positioned in the stations or technical buildings deployed all along the tracks.

This interface compresses digitizes, and transfers video streams through the ATM network, based on Alcatel ATM 1660 SM switches utilized as entry sites. Each visual footage stream is then hardware decoded in the local management vicinities, located in the main control room or in the stations. Camera status software and Motion detection are then installed on all the security cameras located on the rail tracks.

The managements installed a very high number of video surveillance cameras, incorporated in an smart digital video surveillance over a networked system in order to guarantee a maximum efficiency and prevention. Each and every operator is capable of monitoring any camera, in any point of the network and regardless of the time of day.

Confirmed Technologies of Security

Would not it be great to link disparate digital and even analog systems throughout a geographic region into a single administration site ? It doesn't take much to realize how dominant such solutions can be when isolated systems, such as downtown, airport, rail or subway surveillance programs, are joined together and supervised from a central command center.

On top of that the security cameras that are continuously recording at private settings such as convention centers, sports arenas, large industrial parks, banks and shopping malls.

After many unsuccessful attempts, first responders will finally have the ability to collect critical data from these disparate monitoring systems about what is happening on the ground during a major disaster or before it even takes place.

In addition to that, the technology assists in examining and processing that data so that the response can be targeted and proper. Resources, such as personnel and equipment, are sent exactly where they are needed without a moment being wasted. The workers will not sit idly by while one site has a urgent need for help. On the other hand, the proper number of workers and resources needed can be estimated and set out accurately, without sending too many resources to one exact location.

Not to mention that, numerous urgent situations could be avoided before they even get the chance to produce chaos and/or cause damage.

security homeland cameras information technology software hardware surveillance security systems product GE VisioWave Intelligent Video Panel CCTV network dome keyboards equipment digital video encoders decoders recorders PTZ encoded IP Ethernet