In the City of Philadelphia the “Fun Safe Philly Summer” initiative offers youths and their families toree and low-cost summer activities, including events at the recreation centres around the city. The city council pledged budget to outfit all 140 centres with CCTV by 2016. Hikvision’s cameras, network video recorders (NVRs), and VMS (video management software) were selected.
With over 600 facilities serving thousands of people each year, the Department of Parks and Recreation worked with City of Philadelphia Engineer Pedro Pinto to develop CCTV design criteria. A primary concern was finding a system that could stay intact as existing infrastructure was gradually upgraded over the city. Sheeba Money is Special Systems Designer at Arora Engineers, Inc., a firm involved with CCTV design for the City of Philadelphia.
Sheeba Money said: “The system needed to be scalable and had to be networked at some point in the future. With every department of the city operating on a different system, it was crucial to provide a video surveillance solution in the rec centers that could be linked into a central management system.” Hikvison’s video management software VMS 4200 was used, which can communicate with other systems made by other manufacturers. In most cases, the presence of the cameras alone has been enough to prevent crime.
Susan Slawson, Deputy Commissioner of Parks and Recreation, said: “Where we were faced with vandalism, loitering, and burglaries before, the numbers decreased immediately once we outfitted our facilities with cameras. We don’t just want a ‘fun, safe, Philly summer;’ we want a fun, safe, Philly. With introduction of Hikvision video surveillance equipment, not only are we covering our sites, we can tell what’s going on in the streets and coordinate with the police department if need be.”
Commissioner Slawson, herself a 20-year veteran of the Philadelphia Police Department, agreed. “We have good video,” Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey confirmed, “that should help us a great deal.”
Fidelity Alarm installed the DS-2CD7254FWD-E 3MP outdoor network camera in several of the rec centres due to the camera’s wide dynamic range and true day/night function. Pat Phillips, Sales Manager at Fidelity Alarm, said: “In addition to gathering footage from the immediate vicinity, it captures clear images from as far away as across the street.”
After a shooting at the Dell Music Center the police had a start on the investigation due to cameras on the building’s exterior fitted by Fidelity Alarm. Footage was provided to the police and images were released to the public so that the perpetrators could be identified.
Jeffrey He, president of Hikvision USA, said: “Hikvision is proud to provide versatile, convenient, and efficient video surveillance solutions to the City of Philadelphia. Hikvision technology protects our society’s most invaluable asset – our young people – in municipalities across the U.S. and Canada. As we continue to rapidly expand, we look forward to bringing even more success stories to the North American market.”
Visit www.hikvision.com.
