Video Surveillance systems for the Police have to meet demanding operational requirements and be exceptionally reliable due to the need to capture vital information relating to criminal activity. In addition to this, they are also used to monitor events such as major demonstrations and festivals where the systems are used to direct aand respond to situations as they evolve in real time.
It is with the above needs in mind, that Tyco design and deliver our CCTV systems for the Police and of course, ensure that the quality of the pictures, both live and recorded meet the needs of evidential requirements for which they are often used. With these criteria in place, Tyco designed and delivered the CCTV element of the Metropolitan Police's C3i system.
The C3i Project
A system was required to enable the control room to tap into the capital’s CCTV infrastructure, to allow them to respond to incidents with appropriate resources and have better control over events as they unfold. s part of a multi-million pound order, Tyco Integrated Systems supplied London’s Metropolitan olice Service with what is believed to be the World's largest integrated CCTV monitoring and control system for public safety and security.
.
The Solution
Technology has been installed to enable access to as wide a network of CCTV cameras across the city as we can.
The requirement was straightforward enough: deliver and commission the largest integrated video routing system ever seen in the UK and possibly even the World.
It would be the backbone of the CCC video system, taking inputs from CCTV video feeds, broadcast television, Transport for London (TfL) cameras, Heathrow Airport, New Scotland Yard and 32 London boroughs. The system would have to be able to route any camera to any video wall, operator workstation or recording device.
Integration and technology
The CCTV system is designed to pull information from the city’s extensive network of CCTV surveillance cameras, communications systems and other information sources and pipe all the information to the special operations centre. This gives police operators access to real-time images from thousands of CCTV cameras situated across London.
The Tyco CCTV system is part of a fully integrated command and communications system that combines radio communications, computer data systems and CCTV to provide the public with a faster more effective police response to events and emergencies, including 999 calls.
The CCTV control room is a horseshoe shaped area with 100 screens comprising a bank of 80 19-inch LCD screens and a further bank of 20 screens. This is where images from the capital’s 30,000+ CCTV cameras arrive. Here, commanders can request images be routed to the pods and the video walls in the main room, giving the ability to shape and control the response to the incident.
The project presented technical challenges in terms of video performance, systems resilience manufacturing, testing and project logistics. Issues which had to be considered included bandwidth, cross talk, signal to noise ratio, differential gain, phase and delay, switching delay from request to presentation of the video image and the ability to display a single video source on all outputs simultaneously.
Our Expertise
To handle this complex requirement, we used our CCTV integration skills to design a large custom video matrix with over ¼ million cross points. This will act as a virtual switching matrix offering practically unlimited expansion capability.
This means that further CCTV cameras from any or all the London Boroughs can be easily integrated into the system as and when required.
We provided advanced real-time video control software based on the industry standard TV-NP open protocol, originally developed by us.
We also designed and installed the video and audio transmission system linking the cameras and control rooms.
Our large scale CCTV expertise and the ability to complete the project to a very tight time-scale were major factors in the success of meeting the demands of the Metropolitan Police.
