Surveillance

Effective surveillance network

By Jianggan Li | 7 November 2008

While a single camera can be effective in its own right as both deterrent and monitoring tool, shares Steve Reilly, Vice President for Corporate Surveillance of Star Cruises, a centrally managed network of cameras enables operators to have effective situational awareness.

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Star Cruises is the third-largest cruise line in the world, and the dominant player in the Asia-Pacific market.

“The effectiveness of the cameras systems under such management is dependant on those whom operate and survey these cameras,” says Reilly. “A large network of cameras managed from one location can on occasion be detrimental to the intended purpose of camera placement.”

Reilly believes that with a large network of cameras, the attention to such numbers is subject to operators’ quota. He says that although automatic alarm triggers can be put in place, active monitoring by operators remains effective.

Richard O’Donnell, Director of Surveillance at MGM Grand Macau – a mega casino resort – highlights that as a support unit, the surveillance department ‘changes as business dictates’.

In the casino setting, that means change of layout or deployment of additional gaming tables – the surveillance department will then install the appropriate number of cameras which will be integrated in the system.

MGM Grand Macau’s CCTV network has over 2700 cameras and there are plans to expand with another 1000 cameras. “It is vital that we have CCTV footage as records of all financial transactions throughout the casino with the large amounts of money that are constantly changing hands,” says O’Donnell. “To be able to investigate complex untoward activity means it is crucial for this network to be in place.”

O’Donnell also says that substantial investment has been dedicated to get the best projects for the job function required.

Reilly agrees, saying that it is vital to have a reliable system and further more, the selection of CCTV hardware is essential when taking the requirement of a truly international support structure from leading manufacturers.

Integrated Stressing that the management of surveillance networks is current within Star Cruises, Reilly points out that surveillance operations active aboard vessels within the fleet are paramount. In addition to the primary teams on board who are set the task of active monitoring of given targets and respond to situations in cooperation with fellow operational teams, there is a secondary back-up – a remote Surveillance hub which undertake detailed tasks from a central monitoring station.

Reilly also stresses the importance of having a parallel system when users are migrating to digital platforms. “During and after the migration, care must be taken to fully understand that a digital recording system will encounter teething difficulties,” he explains. “The use of primary systems running parallel until all bugs have been fixed is essential.” At MGM Grand Macau, a number of systems are set to interface with the CCTV system, including the access control system; and O’Donnell’s team is also looking to incorporate another two systems – point of sale and gaming.

Reilly has explored many varied solutions to integrate intelligent capabilities into Star Cruises’ CCTV systems, but he has “not yet found an effective package that would suite the fleet environment.”

He also points out that the biggest challenge he faces is that Star Cruises’ surveillance network is spread across its fleet of ships, is the support aspect of large and distant systems.

Star Cruises’ surveillance systems are ship based and the vessels move between ports of call, relying on external support for the system is not a viable or practical solution. “Rather we ensure that we maintain surveillance technicians who are fully trained and certified on systems hardware and network aspects of a modern CCTV system.

Wireless? For the sake of flexibility and sometimes technical practicality, some organisations have installed a wireless network of cameras. Hong Kong’s MTR Corporation, operator of Hong Kong’s rapid transit railway system, has a sophisticated CCTV implementation. All the strategic locations in stations are monitored, including the platform and access areas. Optical links provide 1.2Gbit/sec real time digital video transmission to the Operations Control Centre (OCC). In addition, dual optical fibre transmission is enabled for redundancy.

However, it became a bit problematic when it comes to trains. For newly procured carriages, while a cable surveillance network can be included to support a high data throughput and minimise frequency interferences to network transmission, a huge coupler electrical box is required to accommodate the LAN connections.

The constraint is more severe for existing fleets, where existing coupler electrical boxes need to be replaced and installation work is more complicated. In addition, the requirement for external jumper cables and connections at each car imposes operational constraints for car unit movement and train formation.