The Danish IP video management software (VMS) provider Milestone Systems reports its products are in use in eight cities around Minnesota’s largest metropolis, Minneapolis-St. Paul. Visit http://www.milestonesys.com/company/newsroom/customer-stories/
Eight cities here covering more than 200 square miles have connected their video surveillance. With the networked Milestone XProtect video management software, each municipality controls its own security monitoring and can connect with neighbours.
Tim Ferrian, Director of Sales and Marketing, at the security installer Pro-Tec Design, says: “We had a collective idea between municipalities to centralise local systems with the same IT backbone. Every city can adopt software from the Milestone platform to have its own system. But there are times administrators may want to open access to their system to solve a mutual incident, and they can get assistance from neighbouring emergency services for as much help as possible to solve a problem. Sharing camera feeds through Milestone has been a valuable yet easy-to-integrate solution that each municipality has eagerly installed.”
Pro-Tec Design identified the parallel and individual needs of each city and their departments. For example, police in one city has a variety of applications different from IT, schools or retail business in another. All cities in common needed IP video management software (VMS) to replace limited legacy analogue systems.
XProtect VMS in each city is in use to monitor and secure assets, whether a government building, transport or city-owned businesses. For example, Milestone Mobile is deployed on tablets and smartphones. The cities are saving money by deploying emergency services, knowing what they are dealing with before sending out first responders. Pro-Tec also expanded the open platform into other applications, such as video integration using XProtect Transact for government-owned retail stores.
Pro-Tec’s work with the cities in Minnesota developed from card access control and video surveillance. Ferrian says: “We could see the shift in security and surveillance to IP, and we wanted to partner with strong companies to provide our clients with a solution beyond their current expectations that could easily be installed, upgraded and expanded over time. Milestone understood this, not only in the technology’s infancy but how it would evolve to what end-users expect in the future, to deliver as a flexible core offering.”
Common themes within cities include: watching out for the visitors of city halls, keeping track of persons in custody at police stations, providing evidence for investigations, protecting staff and equipment, monitoring community pools and protecting the government from liability, or watching intersections for public works operations (moving snow, salting roads). There are also such needs as monitoring a farmer’s market, old people’s centres, community sports, schools, historical landmarks, water towers and treatment facilities.
These eight cities are linked: Shoreview, Farmington, Brooklyn Center, Minnetonka, Maple Grove, Brooklyn Park, Edina and Minneapolis Proper. In addition, the Minnesota Department of Transportation (MNDOT), Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development and the Minneapolis Convention Center are included within this ‘Ring of Protection’.
Nick Lovejoy, IT Specialist, City of Edina says: “Our Milestone installation process was very simple; the interface is easy to use and very straightforward. It’s evident in our day-to-day operations that the Milestone interface has helped us improve services in the city, addressing and solving many issues with a quick turnaround.”
Brooklyn Center has integrated the Point of Sale (POS) systems at its liquor stores with XProtect Transact software, which displays video associated with register transactions. This integration gives a time-synchronised interface linking receipt data with corresponding video, extending the monitoring of operations to include actual cash register data. This identifies problems involving POS and credit cards to reduce shrinkage and fraud.
Patty Hartwig, IT Director for Brooklyn Center, says: “Ease of use was extremely important when deciding on our VMS installation. We did our research looking for user-friendly, adaptable and easy-to-modify solutions. Our system needed to play back and pull up video in an instant. We put an extreme value on the Milestone VMS protecting our city assets: we required a product that would be here today, tomorrow and in the future. Milestone has and continues to show that value.” Visit www.milestonesys.com.
