Built in 2017 for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, the 60,000-capacity Gazprom Arena is the home ground of the Russian football club Zenit St Petersburg. As it’s due to be one of the host stadiums for the 2021 Euro Football Championship, the stadium has to satisfy the security regulations of football bodies FIFA and UEFA besides ESSMA, the European Stadium and Safety Management Association. The video security product in use is the Panomera multifocal-sensor, from the German manufacturer Dallmeier.
The aim was to give video coverage around the stadium besides, the entrance gate approaches, the rooms below grand stands, and the grandstands themselves. Stadium managers required the video to capture all areas of all the grandstands all of the time, in case offenders needed identifying. The Russian Interior Ministry stipulated that a video security system must capture the entire grandstand area with a “minimum resolution density” of 250 pixels per metre (px/m). This corresponds to the performance criterion defined in the European standard DIN EN 62676-4 for video security systems for purposes of enabling identification of an unknown person. Secondly, the image frequency must not fall below a frame rate of 25 frames per second (fps).
The stadium invited a number of vendors to present their products at Zenit’s former home ground – the Petrovsky Stadium. A Dallmeier video security system had already been operating in the Petrovsky Stadium since 2012. The operators decided to stay with Dallmeier in the Gazprom Arena.
The manufacturer says that the patented Panomera can guarantee coverage of even the largest expanses with the stipulated minimum resolution density and frame rate. And Panomera continuously captures everything that is happening in full resolution and allows high-resolution zooms – live and in the recording, and by several operators at the same time. This enables stadium operators to track and reconstruct events in detail, live and after the fact.
As for planning, a 3D digital reproduction of the Gazprom Arena was created. This helped to fulfil the requirement according to which at least 250 px/m must be assured “in every last corner”: colour coding in the 3D simulation makes it possible to see exactly where the value has been reached and where a correction should be made, whether by setting up in a another position or using a different camera model.
Zenit St Petersburg is able to cover the terraces at the Gazprom Arena with far fewer than 100 Panomera cameras, covering all areas with at least 250 px/m and 25 fps. An alternative solution may have required a four-figure number of conventional single-sensor cameras, the manufacturer suggests. Apart from infrastructure costs (masts, cables) this would also have generated far more images for the video operators.
Dallmeier’s 3D planning, pictured, automatically generates “CamCards” – exact configuration documents for each camera. With this information, installers on site know which camera must be mounted where, how high and at what angle. Besides time saved, an installer predict how much labour the installation will entail. The video security began operating after final project commissioning in good time for the 2018 World Cup.
Today, over 1,000 single-sensor cameras have been installed in the Gazprom Arena in addition to the Panomeras; these cover the remaining areas of the stadium. Due to the large number of cameras, the total storage capacity for the video security system amounts to more than six petabytes (equivalent to about 6,000 TB). Recording appliances from Dallmeier are used. Various authorised personnel can access the system at 80 workstations.
Karlheinz Biersack, Director Sales Eastern Europe/RUS/GUS at Dallmeier says: “Of course we were delighted that the security managers of Zenit St. Petersburg also decided to rely on Dallmeier again for their new home, the Gazprom Arena. This success in the largest stadium project we have ever undertaken shows once again that Dallmeier’s holistic security and solution approach – above all the patented Panomera technology and our unrivalled project and consulting services represent an immense benefit for our customers.”
