Scheveningen Harbor in the coastal city of The Hague in the Netherlands has an AI-based video security system from Bosch Building Technologies. It means every ship or boat entering or leaving the harbour is logged. The customised solution developed by Bosch with its partner BrainCreators automatically registers and classifies shipping traffic.
Pictured left to right are Bosch Niels van Doorn (Bosch), Cees Duvekot (Harbor Master The Hague), Ferry Ditewig (Bosch), Glenn Brouwer (BrainCreators).
Previously, employees at the port control centre had to keep an eye on shipping traffic around the clock from the window of the control centre and manually record the 80 or so vessels that pass through the port daily. The reason for the spend on the security was fear that criminals would seek alternative routes via smaller ports such as Scheveningen, now that large Dutch or Belgian ports such as Rotterdam and Antwerp have been made more secure against smuggled goods. This was reason enough for the city council of The Hague to find a solution for the port of Scheveningen.
Most boats and ships entering the port of Scheveningen are not required to register and, unlike purely commercial ports such as Rotterdam, the port cannot simply be closed. Besides cargo ships, fishing boats and private sailing yachts are at anchor, and small dinghies and rowing boats cruise between them. Keeping track of the movement of goods in particular is therefore a challenging task in Scheveningen, hence the video security system with intelligent video analysis installed by Bosch.
Niels van Doorn, Senior Manager Solutions & Portfolio at Bosch Building Technologies in the Netherlands, says: “The requirements for this project were very specific because the shipping traffic not only had to be filmed, but also registered and classified. The solution also had to provide information about the speed of travel. Standard software can’t do that. Together with our partner, we have therefore developed an AI that can identify and classify ships of all kinds – from passenger ships and freighters to sailing yachts and inflatable boats.” This data aids in identifying suspicious shipping movements.
Development, planning and implementation took around 12 months. Two intelligent video cameras at the mouth of the harbour record the traffic. The developed AI classifies the ship types and registers them in a file. Due to the difficult lighting in the port, the Flexidome IP starlight 8000i cameras from Bosch were chosen. They deliver images even in challenging weather and lighting the makers say and enable the staff in the control centre to see detail, even in very bright or dark image sections. Boat identifiers are recorded, documented, stored and automatically provided with date and time, direction of travel and speed around the clock, using AI. The streams from the cameras are fed into a video management system. Ships that are not seen in real time by the personnel on duty appear as still images on the screen. By analysing all the data, peak times, ship types, trends and deviations from the norm are determined.
Ferry Ditewig, Business Development Manager at Bosch Building Technologies in the Netherlands, says: “The dashboard gives staff an overview of all activities in the port. The software protects the privacy of the people recorded by making their faces unrecognisable. The new video documentation now provides solid evidence and helps to identify suspicious and unusual situations more quickly and effectively.”
