British Transport Police - LLCCTV Control System

Scenario

With public security and safety being of the utmost importance Transport for London (TfL), London Underground (LUL), and Docklands Light Railway (DLR) have invested heavily in CCTV systems in recent years, installing an increasing number of CCTV cameras in and around LUL and DLR stations. With the increase in CCTV camera coverage comes the requirement to be able to effectively monitor the footage transmitted, to ensure the safety of passengers and staff in and around the stations. Because of our extensive experience in camera telemetry, protocol conversion and software development on London Underground systems, KeTech was chosen to design and install a replacement control system for the British Transport Police (BTP) Long Line CCTV.

Clients

The British Transport Police is a special police force which is tasked with policing the railways and light-rail systems in Great Britain. They police the tracks and provide a service to the rail operators, their staff and passengers across the country. The BTP is largely funded by the train operating companies,

Network Rail and the London Underground – part of Transport for London. The railways present a unique policing environment with a specific set of requirements and the British Transport Police officers and support staff provide a specialist policing service to meet those needs.

Challenge

The challenge presented was to provide a simple, user friendly, integrated control system to offer BTP officers enhanced monitoring of station CCTV cameras and, if necessary, the capability to track potential suspects as they moved through the transport network using a simple map based camera selection and viewing process. The camera views had to be available to be viewed at one of 3 different control suites located at the BTP Control Centre, London. A further major challenge presented was the ability to integrate, into one single system, the numerous different systems installed at the stations over the years that utilised different equipment manufacturers and different camera communication protocols.

Solution

The KeTech BTP LLCCTV Control System is designed around the Microsoft Windows operating system. Bespoke software, written in C++, provides a simple graphical user interface. As the system has to utilise existing CCTV video and telemetry modem and video matrix transmission systems, KeTech designed and installed bespoke protocol converters at stations as required, enabling a single camera control system to be used.

Benefits

The KeTech BTP LLCCTV Control system is based on tried and tested technology developed specifically for the BTP. The system provides the following benefits:

• High integrity system – enhanced by a simple yet effective user interface
• Familiar LUL line map for convenient station selection
• 3D station mapping for easy navigation
• Simple camera sequencing
• Licence free operation
• Easily updated to meet additional customer requirements, additional cameras or new stations to the system