Page 68 - Security Today, April 2017

Getting The Most
Advanced VMS helps protect the city BTy Ken LaMarca
he large geographical area and variety of locations and assets to protect make municipal video surveillance particularly challenging. Adding to the difficulty is the fact that municipalities are often working within tight budget restraints that reduce their ability to deploy the
most effective, high-performance solutions that will deliver the great- est security. In many instances, funding for public services continues to decline, forcing cities and towns to do more with less. These bud- get cuts can be applied across several municipal functions, including police and fire departments, meaning these vital resources must be maximized to their fullest potential.
Municipal surveillance is even more challenging given the fact that these solutions are typically not a single video system. Rather, they consist of multiple video systems, including police, transporta- tion and traffic, some of which have likely been in place longer than others, and offering varying levels of compatibility. However, to be effective, all these surveillance systems must work together as a whole to avoid the need to manage and monitor them separately. For bud- get-conscious municipalities, the labor required for this would be pro- hibitive but the alternative, ripping and replacing systems to ensure compatibility, is simply unthinkable.
This is one of the key areas where VMS excels. These powerful solutions serve as the unifying foundation of a powerful municipal surveillance system, bringing together not only various video systems
but also other security and non-security systems into a single inter- face. Think of an advanced VMS as a one-stop shop that seamlessly oversees important surveillance and security functions to streamline operations, increase the effectiveness of security and significantly ease management for municipalities, as well as their individual de- partments.
Below are a few of the many key areas where VMS are well po- sitioned to help municipalities meet their security and surveillance goals and address their needs.
Centralized Management and Control
VMS can be installed in a single location for central recording and management, allowing multiple viewers to simultaneously view video and have control over any number of cameras in the surveil- lance system. This makes video readily available from cameras that are geographically dispersed and provide differing image qualities depending on their application, while allowing various facilities and departments to monitor their own cameras as needed.
One California city installed video in public parks, busy intersections and other key locations throughout the city, with images captured at these locations transmitted wirelessly to the control center in its public safety complex. This allows cameras to be viewed or managed easily, which is particularly important for traffic management. When operators need to see the various views of an intersection either indi-
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0417 | SECURITY TODAY
MUNICIPAL SECURITY
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