Automatic number plate recognition and facial recognition are on trial in a car park covered by Southend Borough Council?s CCTV system.
Automatic number plate recognition and facial recognition are on trial in a car park covered by Southend Borough Council?s CCTV system. Paul Croft, Senior Technician in the Essex council?s Special Operations Section, told Professional Security that number-plate monitoring is on trial at one multi-storey. The aim is that the car registration and face of the driver are noted by the camera when the car enters the multi-storey, and seek a match of the two when the car?s registeration number is noted at the exit. Southend, who gained ล1.076m in a successful round one bid to the Home Office, have a new control room using digital recording – the 2nd EYES PLUS recorder from Primary Images. Instead of 31-day tapes, a cartridge is replaced every couple of days; Southend hopes to go to a fully automatic library system. In terms of camera numbers, thanks to the central government grant the expanded system is largely covering car parks. Some 41 town centre cameras include nine that cover the seafront either side of the pier; another 86 cameras cover three multi-storeys. In the control room, one server looks after the town centre cameras, another server the car park cameras. Paul Croft said of car park surveillance: ?We try to react to problems if we are notified about them, although our operators do spend quite some time looking at received images from the car parks, to try to pre-empt events that occur.? The council is looking to improve the multi-storey environment to make it more welcoming to drivers, in an effort to get the multi-storeys more used. Such measures could include painting the pre-cast concrete finishes of the car park, and tackling graffiti. The local authority reports a fall in reported street crime since the CCTV system. The partnership agreement with local police means there is an open invitation to police to enter the control room, which is staffed by direct council employees around the clock.
In the control room.
The old CCTV room was on the third floor of the Civic Centre, the council head office; the new control room has been built underground closer to the town centre. A total of 75 JVC monitors ? ranging from the grandstand view 29 inch models to the desk mounted 10 inch screens ? adorn the control room. Paul Croft, who oversees Southend?s CCTV operation with Andy Tait (Group Leader Special Operations), said: ?People do think it?s like mission control when they come in here for the first time, but the main object of the CCTV system is to make Southend a safer place to live in and to visit.? The JVC monitors were installed by Videcom Security Ltd of Waltham Abbey, whose Managing Director Ron Johnson said: ?Without a doubt this control room is one of the most impressive in the country.? Paul Croft added: ?We are a reactive service but we tour the whole town centre on the hour and attempt to be as proactive as possible. Our links to the shop radio scheme and police control room means that we can respond instantly when an incident occurs. Our JVC monitor wall is impressive and the crisp pictures they give our operators are outstanding.? Yash Patel, JVC?s Director of CCTV, commented: ?Our range of monitor sizes makes them ideal for this kind of application where both large and small screens are needed.?
