Key Highlights

• ADT implements North Somerset Council’s transition from analogue to digital video surveillance
• Advanced control room manages coverage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• Upgraded system helps to deliver a significant fall in crime

Situation

In the 1990’s North Somerset Council took advantage of government funding and introduced video surveillance cameras in Weston-super-Mare to assist with crime reduction and promote public safety. The video coverage helped to establish the nature, location and time of crimes in the town centre and assisted police officers with the identification of offenders. Additional cameras were later installed in the towns of Nailsea, Clevedon and Portishead.
 
The success of these video surveillance systems recently convinced the council to upgrade their equipment from analogue to digital recording. They asked ADT to implement a solution that would not only take advantage of recent technical developments but also remain consistent with the requirements of the police and Criminal Justice System.

Solution

An important part of the upgraded system involved the overhaul and modernisation of North Somerset Council’s video surveillance control room. Clever use of space and technology allowed ADT to expand the centre without the upheaval and extra cost of having to relocate.
 
The new control room is linked to 65 cameras, mainly by fibre optic cables. Six monitors at two workstations enable the detailed handling of incidents, while a 32 screen video wall is constantly scanned by trained operators to keep a broad view of what is occurring across the region 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Potential areas of concern are continually panned and zoomed to ensure a water tight surveillance umbrella is maintained within the district.
 
To obtain images of the clarity required by the police when investigating crimes and collecting evidence for successful prosecutions, high specification cameras and verifiable recording equipment was implemented. To ensure 24 hour operation, high resolution cameras with day/night operation were used, as well as infra red switching, integration functionality to build up pictures in poor light, and peak white inversion for back-lit images.
 
The cutting edge digital recording equipment allows operators to capture these high quality images and delivers significant advantages over the previous analogue recording technology, which was difficult and time consuming to review. With digital video surveillance recording there is no need to replay hours of tape to identify an incident. Footage can be searched by simply entering a date and time or applying a mouse pointer to a timeline on a monitor screen. If the incident time is not known, a search can be made by marking a section on the image and asking the system to find activity in that area. Very quickly, a list of events will be offered for review. During all the operations, normal recording continues, uninterrupted.

Results

The new digital video surveillance system has enabled North Somerset Council to further assist the police service with significant opportunities to deter offenders, identify crimes in progress, monitor the activities of suspects and provide evidence to support the prosecution process.
 
Chris Harrison, CCTV Manager at North Somerset Council comments: “Upgrading the Video Surveillance System in place at North Somerset has proven invaluable in helping deter and detect crime and the effects are clear from the falling statistics. Not only did crime fall by 17% during the year that the new control room was commissioned, but we are proud to be able to state that one out of seven events recorded by video surveillance currently ends in an arrest.”