Page 16 - Security Today, March 2022

“Houston is shaping the future of “smart cities” with its forward-thinking approach when it comes to public safety and security.”
Discovery Green Park, the George R. Brown Convention Center, and intersections near the venues. HLL is a collaborative effort hosted by Houston First that leverages big data and evolving technologies to deliver capabilities to public safety professionals. HLL helps city entities test solutions until they are proven and allows technology partners to validate their technology in an ac- tive environment.
Acting as an R&D site that offers live public safety technology used during real world events, the city was able to effectively test the latest technologies for future deployment or share best prac- tices with private security professionals within the Houston area.
Located in the George R. Brown Convention Center (GRBCC), HLL was initiated out of necessity for Super Bowl LI (2017) and ended up developing into a robust public and private partnership for technology discovery and use.
“The relationships built at the HLL were instrumental in help- ing us support the needs at other high- profile sites throughout the city that were identified with concerns regarding general public safety and quality of life,” said Jack C. Hanagriff, program man- ager at the Houston Office of Public Safety & Homeland Security.
This included the Houston Safe Park Program, with deploy- ment of public safety technology at Memorial Park Golf Course for the Houston Open, and a deployment at the Metropolitan Multi-service Center (West Gray Adaptive Park) to support qual- ity of life concerns and voting site security, as well as several “spin
off ” initiatives that support smart city endeavors throughout the city. At the GRBCC, the needs were more diverse as the focus was not only on public safety and monitoring aggressive behavior in and around the convention center; but proactively improving traffic at intersections and managing operations in the parking garages and throughout the convention center.
Smart City Expands its Capabilities
with a Smart VMS Solution
The Houston Living Lab was looking for an on premise software solution that could easily bring together some of the latest tech- nologies. Milestone’s open platform made it the ideal choice for most of Houston’s city-wide deployments. This created seamless integrations to cutting-edge security technologies such as: gunshot/ aggression detection, perimeter surveillance, wireless transmission radios, video surveillance, advanced audio analytics, video analyt- ics/artificial intelligence, weapon & drone detection software, traf- fic flow/incident detection, and thermal & UAV detection.
“After converting to the Milestone VMS platform in October 2019, we forged a seamless partnership with Milestone,” said Tim- othy Smith, vice president of Information Technology at Houston First Corporation. “Technology can only take you so far without communication. We needed the right technology partnerships and integrations that was a real game changer for us.”
Houston city officials have relied on Teksys as a trusted security advisor for more than a decade to help create its public safety net- work. Over the last 11 years, Teksys maintained and optimized the city-wide video network, which included working with some of the best-in-breed security technology partners in the industry such as Axis Communications, Hanwha Techwin America, and Milestone Systems to name a few.
16
MARCH 2022 | SECURITY TODAY
COVER STORY