Parking garage in the Middle East

Being able to move about at any time of day or night is one of the benefits of modern society. Yet our independence depends a great deal on feeling safe no matter where you are or where you're going. If you're headed back to your car after a late night at the office, all you really want to have to worry about is whether or not you'll hit traffic on the way home, and not if your car is still where you left it.

Customer

Engineering Group Contractors (EGC) (Lebanon)

Technology

IP-based video surveillance network

Market Vertical

Commercial

Challenge

Provide an IP-based video streaming solution that incorporates the legacy analog camera network and a third-party VMS system.

Solution

Siqura S-series encoders

Going where you want, when you want

Being able to move about at any time of day or night is one of the benefits of modern society. Yet our independence depends a great deal on feeling safe no matter where you are or where you're going. If you're headed back to your car after a late night at the office, all you really want to have to worry about is whether or not you'll hit traffic on the way home, and not if your car is still where you left it.

However, parking garages are notorious for crime; a study in the UK showed that cars were four times more likely to be stolen from a parking lot than off the street; the US Department of Justice cites that parking lots and garages are the second most probable spot in the nation for non-violent crimes and the third for violent crimes. Due to the fact that attendants can rarely oversee the entire situation and parking garages are often open to all who pass by, potential perpetrators may generally view many lots as an easy target.

Improving safety through security

Despite these disturbing facts and figures, technological advancements are helping make the world a safer place. Knowing the importance of safety as well as protecting parked cars from illegal activity, a Middle Eastern development company recently asked the Lebanese systems integrator, Engineering Group Contractors (EGC), to set up an IP surveillance system at a primary parking venue in the heart of one of the Middle East's most prominent cities.

Although the parking garage in question has had an analog CCTV system for some time now, attendants haven't able to monitor the complete surveillance situation, and the risks of leaving your vehicle there have been similar to those abounding throughout the rest of the world. Consequently, EGC is implementing a new system that will be capable of recognizing faces and license plates, comprehensively identifying and keeping track of everybody going into or out of the parking garage.

Integrating new and old equipment into a single solution

The original surveillance system consisted of over two hundred analog cameras and these are being incorporated into the new IP network. The improved system will also allow every video stream to be viewed on Genetec's renowned video management system (VMS), Omnicast, in a central control room. From there, operators will be able to follow up on alarms and survey the entire surveillance situation with various fixed and pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) cameras, ensuring that both people and property are protected.

Integral to every IP-based CCTV surveillance system are the video servers that encode or convert analog video streams into digital signals before sending them to the VMS. Encoders sometimes also apply other information to the stream, such as video motion detection or on-screen displays. Once the digital streams are transmitted to the control room, they are decoded back for viewing on analog monitors. Since the video servers in an IP CCTV system are the means through which streams become meaningful information to security personnel, video codecs are, in sum, what either make or break a surveillance system.

Ensuring success with intelligent assistance and integrated solutions

In order to guarantee the smooth streaming of compressed video in the parking facility, EGC contracted Optelecom-NKF (manufacturer of Siqura®), a supplier of advanced IP and fiber video surveillance solutions, to provide the project with a video server solution. Through Optelecom-NKF's technical support and expertise and given that Siqura codecs are standardized to commonly-known protocols, the Siqura video servers were easy to integrate into both Genetec's Omnicast as well as the existing analog infrastructure. Consequently, the IP surveillance system was soon up and running, making a principal city center in the Middle East a safer place to be.

''Optelecom-NKF has shown that it is committed to providing high-quality products and proficient pre-and post-sales services and technical support," say EGC Engineers. "As a project partner, Optelecom-NKF follows up on their customers' requests and needs, ensuring the success of the project and the customer's satisfaction.''

Practical solutions to protect people and their possessions

Naturally, we all want to embrace the perks that prevail in this day and age but in order to enjoy them, we need to know that we are not in any danger. Despite the unfortunate inevitability of criminal behavior, statistics needn't dictate what we do or where we go. Luckily, companies like EGC and Optelecom-NKF are coming up with practical and innovative solutions to protect people and their possessions, even in relatively high-risk areas, such as parking lots and garages. In this way, the same technology that's expanding our horizons is securing our freedom to safely venture out.