Case Studies

Isle of Man CCTV

by Mark Rowe

A case study of CCTV by Douglas Borough Council (DBC) in the Isle of Man. The revenue generated by the CCTV from public sector users, such as schools, car parks, libraries, and the police, will ultimately cover the council’s costs in providing island-wide CCTV coverage for shopping streets and other public areas.

A CCTV-as-a-service project, supported by the Council’s Leader Councillor David Christian MBE and Borough Engineer Ian Clague MBE, was driven by Daniel Looney, Head of ICT for Douglas council, who was tasked with providing CCTV coverage for Douglas town centre. He knew that, once the control room was set up, the facilities could be extended to other public sector users on the island. This would generate income for DBC to cover its CCTV operating costs, and allowing CCTV services to be provided to the other users at a lower cost than if they had standalone systems.

Daniel Looney approached Aidan O’Reilly of Eye-Spy Security, a local CCTV installer. That company argued that the CCTV equipment would have to be versatile as it would need to work with cameras of various types, and it would also have to be scalable so that its capacity could be expanded as the number of users grew. O’Reilly determined on Vectis HX digital video recorders (HVRs) and Vectis HX NVS network video software from Siemens.

While designed with high-definition (HD) images up to 1080p in mind, Vectis HX recorders are the makers say suited to working with lower resolution images from older cameras, whether or not these cameras use analogue or IP connectivity. Vectis HVRs also support the ONVIF open networking protocol, which is now used by various CCTV camera manufacturers. This means that systems based on Vectis HX recorders are compatible with almost any type of existing camera, and are future proofed to cope with the ultimate replacement of older cameras by modern HD types.

Vectis HX HVRs and the Vectis NVS software use the latest H.264 video compression, and both support IP connections. This is the key to linking users throughout the Isle of Man, which already has a gigabit fibre backbone, to the central control room and monitoring. Video analytics can be used.

The initial install comprises two 64-channel servers running NVS software, with a total of 49 Terabytes of storage, and monitoring in the central control room. The system takes in 97 cameras in central Douglas. Many of the cameras are new Siemens HD types with IP connectivity, but where the analogue cameras were providing satisfactory images, typically in car parks, these have been retained.

The first third-party users of the system are schools, and the DBC service is proving to offer better value for money than possible with a standalone system. Rather than flooding the school with cameras and installing expensive recording and monitoring facilities, DBC analyses the requirements and installs cameras only in problem areas. Monitoring and recording is provided at the central control room. This means that the school pays only a per-camera service charge and has no other on-going costs or capital spend. Image quality is the schools say higher than that produced by the “budget” stand-alone CCTV systems that finances dictate many schools would otherwise have to adopt. Plans are now in place to extend the coverage of the system to Douglas promenade, and to sign up more users across the island.

DBC will also be offering more advanced packages to users, which will optionally include automatic alarm generation based on the video analytics of the Siemens systems and, for critical locations, full 24-7 monitoring by control room operatives.

Daniel Looney said: “We’re delighted with the new installation and with the possibilities it opens up and it’s really making a big impression on all those who see it, with the image quality coming in for special praise. We use 720p, and we’ve been told time and again by visitors, many of whom have extensive CCTV experience, that our system provides the best images they’ve ever seen.”

David Christian said: “Our concept of providing CCTV as a service, which is the basis of our business model, is generating a lot of interest. Our users not only have a dependable and very affordable CCTV service, but also access to our ICT team’s expertise to ensure that they get the best from it.”

For the TT motorcycle races, DBC arranged temporarily enhanced CCTV coverage for duration of the 2012 event. Isle of Man police asked for this part of the system to be made permanent.

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