CleanCar AG, based in Düsseldorf, provides one-stop car care services around Germany and Austria. All its 32 branches offer car wash and ‘CarCosmetic’ valet servicing. Most include car servicing, tyre fitting and engine cleaning, which can be booked online. The larger outlets have petrol and diesel filling stations and retail.
CleanCar appointed specialist security installer MTE GmbH, from Viersen, to design and install an IP surveillance system for protection of staff and customers, and to address wider security and site management.
CleanCar branches are busy; most services and customer transactions taking place without incident. However, the company does face a variety of crimes, from fuel and retail theft, to property damage, fly tipping and false ‘slip and trip’ injury claims.
MTE GmbH designed and installed two pilot IP CCTV systems for CleanCar, in the Glienicker Weg and Treptow-Köpenick branches, in Berlin. These sites proved so effective, they became the template for all sites. There is an installation roll-out planned across the remaining 30 branches during 2017, to bring them all up to the new standard.
Udo Gross-Schnellenkamp, Operational Manager of MTE GmbH, says: “It was critical that the new eneo system provided Full HD video in all camera locations. We needed irrefutable evidence of all site incidents and Full HD video was necessary to achieve the level of detail required.
“We ran new Ethernet network cabling to most parts of each site. We were able to re-use the coaxial cable infrastructure from previous, analogue systems in some cases, using ‘Coax to Ethernet’ converters. This saved on impractical or expensive re-cabling and sped up installation, which reduced costly down-time for the branches during installation.”
The site in Glienicker Weg is typical of the approach MTE GmbH takes to system design. Outdoor and indoor surveillance are required. Udo Gross-Schnellenkamp says: “The car wash is a wet environment with soap and detergent in the water. The car wash entrance, operating area and exit must be watched for vehicle damage, so we needed resilient cameras in these locations. Other outdoor cameras view the traffic lanes at the filling stations. These must be capable of capturing car registration plates and facial detail, day and night.”
Eneo’s aluminium-bodied, bullet cameras, (model IPB-62M2812M0A), from the Candid range, were used for all 27 outdoor locations. The makers say that the products can withstand the wet and corrosive sites and include a defog feature, which reduces the effect of mist and water in their view. At 2.3MP, they also capture the detail of plates and faces. Five, 2MP indoor domes (model IPD-62M2812P0A) were used inside the retail shops, taking the camera count to 32.
MTE used two, 16 channel, PNR series network recorders in each CleanCar branch for local recording and video management, stacked together to give 32 channels. The PNR recorders allow site activity to be viewed live and recorded for 31 days. An incident, from staff safety breaches, to theft and damage, can be reviewed using a time-and-event driven image search. eneo’s iRAS software, which works with the PNR recorders, allows each CleanCar branch manager to view the system in real-time, remotely, from their PC or phone. It also enables multi-site viewing, with a structured interface and an editable site map using camera icons.
The eneo cameras are triple streamed, so a Full HD stream could be dedicated to quality recording, whilst lower resolution streams can be used for viewing on monitors and phones. This feature saves network bandwidth.
The eneo cameras use a Bayer Array CMOS sensor, which captures scene detail, even in difficult lighting according to the manufacturers. A motorised, 2.8 to 12 mm varifocal lens allows adjustment from the PNR, ensuring the optimal field of view for the cameras and a corridor feature for more practical vertical or portrait views of the car wash. The cameras have four, high power, infrared LEDs (850 nm), with an illumination range of 50m, for surveillance day and night.
The camera functions include motion recognition, video loss and privacy zone masking (eight areas), for cameras with views over-spilling onto private housing. All the cameras can be configured using a browser-independent, web interface allowing desktop, laptop, tablet and smartphone set-up.
Udo Gross-Schnellenkamp adds: “Exemplary technical support in terms of system design and configuration were key factors in our decision to use eneo cameras. CleanCar staff feel safer, protected by the new, high-quality, IP CCTV system.”
