Wireless technology and advanced software solutions have combined dramatically to lower the cost of operating video surveillance systems in the mass transit market, says
Using wireless hot spots located at fueling depots or service facilities, transit authorities are easily able to download video, check camera positioning, confirm the health status of system
components and execute software upgrades, he says.
"To maintain an analogue or first generation DVR system, you actually had to actually visit each vehicle periodically and visually check all the cameras to make sure they were in focus and pointed in the right direction, and that the system as a whole was still working," says Bushnik.
"We’ve taken away that requirement. For example, we have added a feature that automatically schedules a periodic camera check. It takes a 10 second clip off each camera and stuffs it in a little file for you, so instead of chasing buses, you can come to work in the morning with a cup of coffee and flip through these clips right at your desk."
Downloading video from a March Networks Mobile DVR (MDVR) is just as easy, he says. To investigate an incident, security staff at transit headquarters schedule a download by selecting a vehicle and identifying a period of time for which video is required.
"The next time the bus or rail car pulls into a hot spot, the video is automatically downloaded,
and when it’s done, the system sends you an email with a link to the video."
Transit drivers are also able to schedule video downloads with the MDVR by pressing a button mounted on their dashboard. The system automatically archives video before and after an incident and puts it in a queue to be downloaded the next time the vehicle enters a hot spot. Transit authorities need to do their due diligence when evaluating wireless video retrieval capabilities, warns Bushnik.
"It’s not enough to say you can download an hour’s worth of video in an hour. That just won’t
fly because your access to the vehicle is limited and the amount of time a vehicle can remain
powered up after it’s turned off is very limited. By using H.263 or MPEG-4 compression, we can download an hour’s worth of video in less than 10 minutes."
Wireless execution of programming changes and software updates, as well as health monitoring of hard drives and cameras, contribute to reducing the cost of ownership and maximising system performance.
"This is a key differentiator for March Networks," says Bushnik. "Our diagnostics capability monitors hard-drive performance and alerts transit security staff to schedule maintenance before a hard-drive fails."
The Canadian manufacturer’s Mobile DVRs can also be equipped for wireless connectivity via cellular networks. With cellular connectivity, security staff at transit headquarters can be alerted to an incident in progress and view live video from the vehicle in question.
"It’s a lower bandwidth connection, but it’s good enough to get onboard live video and GPS
information that will give you positional awareness of where the vehicle is and what’s
happening," says Bushnik.
The cost of cellular airtime has come down, but it’s still expensive on a fleet basis. Looking into his crystal ball, Bushnik sees some movement toward citywide Wi-Fi networks similar to Google’s recent proposal to light up San Francisco.
"It would be just like a cellular network, but with 802.11 high bandwidth hot spots everywhere,
so your transit vehicles would be hot all the time," says Bushnik. "They’re not out there yet, but they will be some day."
Wireless technology also enables transit authorities to leverage the expertise of a third party to monitor and manage the system, he says.
"We’re starting to see a lot of interest from transit authorities in managed services," says Bushnik." This is why March Networks launched its managed services offering. It doesn’t matter where you are. A large bus fleet in California can be monitored from an operations centre across the continent."
By limiting the frequency of operator interventions for performance monitoring and video retrieval, transit authorities with hundreds or thousands of MDVR systems can scale up without having to worry about operating costs going through the roof.
Ruggedised design
Equipping buses, subways and rail cars with electronic equipment that is going to have to contend with harsh, mobile operating conditions and temperature extremes requires special attention to design and engineering. March Networks MDVRs meet design standards (IP65, J1455 and others) for protection against vibration, shock, dust, water and electro-magnetic interference, the firm says.
"Hard-drives, in particular, are very vulnerable to vibration, temperature extremes and unreliable power, so all of that as to be accounted for in the system design," notes Bushnik.
To ensure proper operation of an MDVR on vehicles that are stored outdoors in temperatures of minus 30 degrees Celsius or subject to extreme heat, the units are equipped with a climate control system. Backup power is something else transit authorities should be thinking about when evaluating video surveillance systems.
"Vehicle power can be somewhat transient, so we have designed our MDVRs with built-in battery backup. It serves two purposes. It provides for fault tolerance, so if there’s an electrical disturbance, we just ride over it, and if there’s a catastrophic event, say a crash, the unit remains powered for a period of time, continues recording and gracefully shuts down.
"The one time you don’t want to lose video is exactly the time when the vehicle power fails."
The potential for catastrophic events such as accidents, shootings or terrorist attacks on
the scale of recent incidents in London and Spain accounts for the continued requirement for
easily removable hard-drives in the transit market, says Bushnik.
In a catastrophic event, law enforcement agencies want the hard-drive for evidence, so designing the system for easy extraction and replacement makes sense, it is claimed.
Another feature transit authorities like to see in their Mobile DVR systems is audio recording.
March Networks’ eight-camera 5308 MDVR features two microphone inputs for audio recording.
"Say a customer complains to the transit authority about a driver’s behavior. Having audio and video together is crucial to any investigation of such a complaint. Without an audio record, it’s one person’s word against another’s."
GPS
GPS and speed tracking integration, an option with the March Networks system, provides transit authorities with vital information for investigating accidents and other occurrences. "GPS integration places the vehicle in the exact location where the video you’re looking at is playing, so you not only know what happened and when it happened, but also where it happened and how fast the vehicle was going at the time."
According to Bushnik, two factors are combining to speed the adoption of video surveillance
in the transit market.
"The terrorist incidents in London and the role that the video surveillance evidence played in the investigation there have increased awareness of what video surveillance can do for you. The other factor is the lower cost of ownership made possible by wireless communications and advanced software."
