Surveillance solutions are commonly implemented in an effort to curb crime, however, surveillance is ineffective without monitoring. In addition, monitoring all of the vast open spaces as well as crime hotspots, schools, playgrounds, intersections and more can prove challenging. Smart cities require the ability to implement remote, centralised surveillance along with intelligent monitoring solutions that support multiple cameras to minimise crime and maximise safety, not only for citizens but for tourists and visitors as well.
Curbing criminal activities in city environments is a challenging task. Vandalism such as graffiti, damaging of public amenities and defacement of buildings detracts from the beauty of a city, which is off-putting to tourists and can, as a result, lead to lost revenue. In addition, the cost of repairing damage takes funding away from applications that can be used to beautify and improve the city. Frequent accidents, heavy traffic and hijacking on city roads have a negative impact on residents, workers and visitors and require emergency services personnel to be called in, adding further expense.
Ensuring safety in cities requires 24x7 surveillance, with support for multiple cameras, mobile monitoring and centralised remote monitoring. This helps to ensure that incidents can be identified quickly, the correct emergency services personnel notified, and appropriate action taken to address the crime and bring in the perpetrator. Intelligent monitoring solutions can also help city planning to improve traffic flow, easing congestion and reducing accidents in high-risk areas.
Complete surveillance coverage should include live video feed transmission to a central control room for monitoring purposes. In order to ensure full coverage even in areas without broadband connectivity, this feed should be transmitted at low enough bitrates to enable it to utilise 3G and even EDGE networks. This has the added advantage of enabling mobile surveillance, including fitting surveillance to security patrol cars, and monitoring at remotely located sites. In addition, large capacity hard drive storage is vital, enabling higher definition video from potentially hundreds of cameras to be recorded and stored.
In order to ensure unusual events such as crimes and vandalism can be detected quickly, surveillance needs to support advanced event notifications and alerts. This ensures that even if control rooms cannot be manned at all hours or have reduced staff, incidents are identified for action fast. At traffic intersections, surveillance solutions can be used to provide constant monitoring to immediately alert authorities of any accidents or other incidents. This enables a swift response to incidents to reduce the build up of traffic, easing congestion and the frustration of road users.
Improving the safety of cities using surveillance and monitoring solutions not only reduces crime, it also has financial benefits. Preventing damage to equipment and buildings reduces the money spent on repairs, reducing accidents can lower the cost of clearing the roads, and improvements to the city such as beautifying initiatives and community projects can be implemented instead. Security underpins the smart city, improving the lives of citizens, attracting tourism and making the city safer and more beautiful for all.
