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Plus City near Linz is thought to be Austria’s largest shopping centre, established in 1989.
It has some eight million customers a year to its shops and associated leisure facilities.
Plus City manager Ernst Kirchmeyer reports that the analogue monitoring system installed in 1992 provided live picture transmission but was very complicated to operate. In recent years, the site has moved to digital CCTV. A visit to Dallmeier electronic’s head offices in Regensburg, Bavaria was decisive for the security system contractors Karl and Michael Pechmann. They report they were impressed not only by the functionality and quality of the products but also by their design.
Ernst Kirchmayer, Plus City manager says: "The Dallmeier electronic CCTV solutions we’ve installed are exactly what we imagined."
Some 60 cameras are used in Plus City. Dallmeier electronic’s digital CCTV is used mainly in escalator zones. Alarms are set up so that whenever the escalator stops, a contact triggers the sending of a message to PGuard, the alarm management software, and the cause of the problem can be seen from the control room and action taken. Since the escalators are remotly controlled, they can be started again from the control room, when the situation allows. Video pictures of the escalators can be monitored and recorded from every CCTV console in the control room, and shopping centre visitors can be addressed directly via a loudspeaker system. All camera pictures record continuously and the recordings are overwritten after a specific period determined by the customer. Pictures relating to alarms are transferred to a special recording sector where they have to be deleted manually.
The centre reports that the introduction of digital CCTV monitoring had instant acceptance by the shop tenants as well as customers. One reason for this was doubtless the open-minded attitude of the management in relation to the subject of surveillance, which translated into an appropriate system configuration. The development of an information desk, providing customer information and aiding surveillance has proved its worth. This system has even been partly taken over by the retail tenants who are now partly responsible for it.
The overt system not only helps prevent problems but also generates a feeling of security for customers and retail tenants. The security staff and police are happy with the quality of the pictures. The ProcessViewer contributes by exporting picture data for reviewing and analysis. It assists the security staff and police to identify suspects by providing enlargements of particular areas of the picture. This eases and speeds up the solving of crimes, the centre reports. The value of the pictures is such that both the security staff and police want to co-operate in the proposed expansion of the system.
Customer and installer, System Objekt Schutz Ges.m.b.H. plan a system expansion in 2005. This will take the number of cameras up to 200. The customer now intends that entrances and the revolving doors are to be included in the monitored areas. This should reduce accidents and raids, it is hoped. CCTV is to be integrated with the multi-media system. It will then be possible to monitor larger areas using dome cameras mounted on the ceiling and have pictures transmitted to LCD monitors throughout the centre. The system may also be expanded to include the car park.
Radio-controlled cameras via a wireless LAN are also under consideration.
