Conwy’s new CCTV control room covering the county of Conwy, centred on the seaside towns of the north Welsh coast, is dominated by a video wall – 54 monitors set in three rows. From the March 2005 print magazine.
Viewed by shifts of three operators throughout the day and night, potential areas of concern are panned and zoomed. The control room system, based around Baxall’s Pyramid Matrix, is one of the largest of its kind in the UK. It hascrime reduction and public administration uses.
First system
The new CCTV system that covers Conwy County in part owes its scope and size to the first town centre TV system for Colwyn Bay, installed in 1996. This first system of some 20 cameras, predominantly in the town centre with a small number in housing areas, was successful in addressing the issue of rising street crime, according to the local authority. The system was council-operated in a small control room, with video communication links to the local police control room when required. This system was credited with a 25 per cent reduction in street crime. Such success led to another 17 cameras being installed in Llandudno in 1997, aimed at reducing both street and retail crime. Such was the impact that other local areas began to request inclusion in the system.
Project 2000
Rather than continuing a piecemeal approach to expanding the system, Conwy County Borough Council sought a more strategic look at longer term requirements and devised Project 2000. A crime and disorder audit of the county identified that the levels and nature of local crime justified a CCTV system. On this justification the Home Office’s CCTV Initiative was the source of half of the required funds. The remainder came from town and county council budgets and the private sector – leading to the formation of a funding partnership.
What they say
Gwyn Hughes, a consultant appointed by Conwy to design and project manage the system, takes up the story: “We knew that high quality images were essential in a CCTV system that was to be used for crime prevention. To obtain images of the clarity required by the police in investigating crimes and achieving successful prosecutions from CCTV evidence, as set out in the Police Scientific Development Branch guidelines, high specification cameras and recording equipment was needed. For 24-hour camera operation, that means not just high resolution and day/night operation, but also infra red switching, integration functionality to build up pictures in poor light, and peak white inversion for back-lit images. For police purposes it is not always sufficient to drop back into black and white operation at night in the normal way of day/night cameras – there are times when colour images are essential even in poor light conditions. We also knew that digital recording was the right route to take because of its ability to capture high quality images while providing operational advantages over analogue alternatives. It was imperative though that these machines were set to a high frequency. We decided to capture images at up to 50 pictures per second on 10 channel recorders rather than the less expensive 16 channel option because our experience showed that the additional frequency of image capture was well worth the additional investment.”
Control room
The new control room links to 80 remote cameras by fibre optic cabling, with a small number of mobile cameras being radio linked via a local node point to the fibre-optic network. The geography of the area covered would have allowed line-of-sight microwave connections, but this would have risked transmission degradation in the event of sea mists, so landlines were the chosen option. All communications within the control room are based on a stand-alone LAN to eliminate the possibility of somebody from outside hacking into the system. An additional radio voice link enables retailers and other businesses in the town centre to contact the control room if they become aware of anything suspicious or require police assistance. The three control room operators have workstations built around Baxall’s Pyramid video management system, with a similar fourth station being used for the playback and viewing of imagery by the council staff and, if required, by the Police. In addition to the two monitors at each workstation used for the detailed handling of incidents, the 54-screen video wall is scanned by the operators to keep a view of what is occurring across the county. Control room furniture manufacturer Winsted supplied the 18-bay wide, three-tier high monitor/video wall, together with a 12-bay control console that provides three operator positions. Both units are based on the company’s System 85 modular frame design. Ergonomics were a central element in the design and installation stages, and Winsted used the principles contained in the international ISO standard on ergonomic design of control centres, ISO 11064. This offers end users, specifiers, consultants and installers guidance on how the design of control workstations and the layout of the control room can contribute to the performance objectives set for the control centre. The standard can be applied to: monitor viewing distances, positioning and arrangements; lighting, ventilation, ambient noise levels, workstation finishes, design, and heights; the overall control room layout and its surrounds.
Recording is carried out by some 15 Baxall hard disk recorders. The continuous recording takes place in a machine room on LAN-connected Baxall DTL 960e simplex recorders with 320GB of storage. At each of the workstations and the playback station is a Baxall DTL 96CE recorder handling LAN connection and CD write, used for real-time recording and playback of specific incidents. Should police or others seek copies of images for identification and other evidential purposes, this is provided from the playback station via the BAXNET keyboard and WaveReader software. Besides the digital recording devices, there are two VCRs used for real time recording at the workstations. Conwy chose to dispense with their paper-based system of incident logging and commission a bespoke computerised logging system, now known as CMIS and supplied by Roof Space UK.
The operators are linked to various police departments so that any incidents – anticipated or occurring – can be dealt with. Such links to the police are key to the system’s effectiveness, the council says. The operators can patch the signal through to the nearby police control room and then maintain voice contact with the [olice control room staff. They in turn direct their police units on the ground as required to prevent or address the identified undesirable activity.
For issues that don’t directly involve the police, for example public transport, trading standards or sea safety, operators can alert the appropriate local authority department. There are also cameras on the system covering a number of council depots, some of which also have passive infra-red alarm systems.
Tim Rowlands of Street Cam, the installation company, says: “I believe that this is at present the most technically advanced public safety CCTV system in the UK. As well as the 80 cameras, there are the four Pyramid based control room workstations, the huge video wall, 15 Digital Video Recorders, plus the local and wide area communications. For such a complex project we had to find a partner who could reliably supply and support the wide variety of equipment we needed. Given their range, stock availability, logistics and after sales service Norbain were the first, and last, distributor we approached.”
Constituency of interests
Overall responsibility for the system falls to Charles Phillips, the Chief Environmental Officer of Conwy Council, who is enthusiastic about the benefits it brings. “Our county-wide system not only reduces crime; it also improves the quality of life for residents and visitors in other ways. We see the very technically advanced system as a public protection arrangement. We use it to undertake monitoring of the environment – littering, graffiti, dog fouling – illegal traders, unlicensed taxis and even shellfish gatherers on the shoreline. Funding and support for the system has been given by local town councils and businesses in addition to the Home Office and National Assembly for Wales. We look to work in partnership with them and North Wales Police and other enforcement agencies to make full use of the schemes potential.”
