Protecting and safeguarding citizens is an increasing issue for towns and cities. Many communities round the world are already using modern CCTV solutions from Dallmeier. Their requirements are varied but are always aimed at achieving an extensive, tailor-made all-round solution to meet the highest quality and security requirements. Besides excellent picture quality and easy operation, the number one demand is for compatible and flexible system architecture to enable easy integration into existing security management systems.

Situation
Deterring crime and vandalism as well as protecting against terrorism are the catch words which are becoming more and more important for town and community leaders. For monitoring public places analogue systems are increasingly being replaced by digital ones. This is in order to make the monitoring and evaluation of events and the necessary responses more reliable, faster and more efficient.

Successful example: The city of Heerlen
The Dutch city of Heerlen shows how successful the use of modern video surveillance systems can be. For quite a long time illegal drug traffic and a high crime rate shaped the image of the city. The mayor and the police were looking for a solution – and so the idea of city surveillance was born.

Dallmeier and its Dutch partner VCS Observation realised a unique project where VCS Observation provided all services as general contractor. From the technical design (configuration of recorders and cameras, especially developed software for the management of the control room) to the physical supply of the communications systems (e.g. laying of fibre optic cables and erection of camera masts) and the project’s finance arrangements (pre-financing of all services, the city of Heerlen just pays a monthly rate) – the city was offered a surveillance system adapted to its individual requirements.

A control room has been established in the building of the city police whose furnishing even won an architectural prize. Thanks to their proximity (same building) excellent cooperation with the police is possible; furthermore data protection is ensured by the external control centre. The police receives the data in a form so that it can use it directly for internal purposes. A special manual regulates the communication between the control room and the police and each step is documented. In general, images from around 130 cameras are recorded onto Dallmeier recorders, and 30 cameras have been added in the second quarter of 2006.

Immediate success was achieved. Drugs have disappeared almost completely from the surveillance area and many instances of successful recording have been achieved. The number of recorded offences has decreased by 70%.

Technical background
The city of Heerlen is just one out of many examples where video surveillance is used with great success. But which technique lays behind the model?

Whether it is the surveillance of streets, shopping malls and pedestrian zones or the protection of public buildings – Dallmeier’s product range includes the latest solutions for almost every requirement in the field of CCTV monitoring. To ensure maximum security individual solutions are produced using the Digital Matrix with multiple Intelligent Video Analysis Systems (e.g. NPR, object recognition, etc.). Dallmeier’s Digital Matrix enables the transmission and recording of video and audio signals in broadcast quality via an Ethernet/IP network. Using this technology in DIS units an unlimited number of cameras can monitor public places with their pictures recorded and if necessary sent via IP network. Owing to the MPEG-2/MPEG-4 compression used, the camera pictures are transmitted in real time, top quality and full picture rate. The system architecture also allows an easy control of PTZ cameras.

Pictures are recorded in a ring memory which is automatically over-written after a defined period (e.g. 14 days). Event analysis is very quick and efficient because of the use of customer-specific user interfaces, which are complemented with the most appropriate operating devices such as keyboards (e.g. PTZ control) or jog-shuttles (e.g. replay control).

Improved efficiency and security thanks to intelligent video analysis systems
Intelligent Video Analysis Systems support the monitoring tasks in various fields. One example is the software SEDOR^® "Static Objects" (“self-learning event detector”) which automatically recognises dangerous situations, detects relevant events and calls attention to unusual situations. SEDOR^®’s special characteristic is its ability to learn independently to recognise and categorise events and situations as being normal or abnormal. In the field of city surveillance, an unusual situations might be an unattended luggage left at a railway station. In addition SEDOR^® can provide statistical analysis of customer and traffic movements – useful information for planning and making decisions.

Another example for an intelligent video analysis system is the Dallmeier DI-Detector for vehicle number plate recognition. With the help of NPR vehicles can be identified and the appropriate data be further processed (e.g. entry/exit authorisation in car parks).

Integration in higher level management systems
The pictures are analysed in specially equipped security and control rooms. How alarms are dealt with is carefully regulated between the control centre and the police to ensure that they are handled punctually and in a coordinated way. This requires flexible system design, so that the system can be expanded at any time and so that it is possible to add further alarm systems or integrate it into a higher level management system.