PSIM Deployment in Rail, Road and Maritime Environments: NICE Systems Q&A

Jamie Wilson, who recently spoke to IFSEC Global about deploying cutting-edge PSIM technology in airports, now turns his attention to other areas of transport.

NICE Systems’ security marketing manager EMEA reports on applications in a Moscow rail hub, Glasgow’s safe-city project and a Polish seaport – with accompanying videos.

IFSEC Global: What kind of involvement does NICE have on train networks?

Jamie Wilson: It’s a strong vertical for us. Network Rail is a key customer and Kings Cross station has our PSIM solution, which they’re using for operational benefits as well as safety and security.

It’s those incremental benefits of saving time because I think Network Rail are charged something like £60 a minute for delays. So if you can reduce delay time by identifying what the incident is and deal with it a bit quicker, you’re going to save yourself money.

And if you’ve got that over a huge network, and that’s happening on a daily basis, it’s quite compelling.

So again I think we’re seeing a real change in the focus of leading rail infrastructure providers across Europe. They’re really looking at this sort of thing.

IG: What other train stations or networks, here or overseas, are using your systems?

JW: Yes there is. We’ve got lots and lots. Another good one to mention is Aero Express, which brings trains into Moscow airport [see video below].

A few years ago they had some bombings. They’re also using the PSIM solution for crowd detection, video analytics, so they can see if they’ve got a build-up of passengers.

They’ve actually found that their customer satisfaction results have gone up. So there’s a real drive to improve customer experience.

In Denver they’re doing some really cool stuff as well. New Jersey Transit is another customer of ours.

IG: Can you give me an example of a situation where your technology is deployed?

JW: If a fight’s broken out on a platform or someone’s vandalising something then someone can hit the help point button, an alarm goes off and the control room camera automatically goes to where the incident is.

The operator will see a workflow of the fight breaking out, send the British transport police, there are tick boxes – whether it’s a false alarm and nothing needs to be done, that kind of thing.

So it’s that kind of soft-touch operational side.

If you’ve got a build-up of passengers stuck because a turnstyle is broken, then (A) we need to get an engineer down there to fix it and (B) we need more staff there to get people through a bit quicker.

Then there’s the legal aspect. Say someone falls over at a train station and they want to sue because the platform was wet. If you can play back the incident and see the response then that can make a major difference.

IG: And what about the road network?

One of the big problems is people dying or getting seriously injured at level crossings where they try and jump the crossing and things like that. You can have a camera connected to the control room, which if it detects anything then it flags an alert.

IG: What about traffic cameras?

JW: Road networks is not something we really get involved with at the moment. Having said that, where we will get involved in road networks is obviously in a safe city.

For example, Glasgow. They’re bringing in cameras from around the city and that will involve traffic management. One of the great things about that is that everybody’s under one roof – so you’ve got the traffic management guy, the police, the housing association guys… They’re all in one place, they’ve all got access to all the cameras.

So if there’s, for example, an accident on one of the main roads out of Glasgow, they’re going to need to shut that road off. They know they can send the police down, they can look at traffic, they know what to do, what procedures to follow.

IG: You’re involved with seaports too, I understand?

JW:

It’s something I can talk about personally because I had the pleasure of going to a Naftoport in Gdansk, Poland. We’ve got a really interesting deployment there [see video below].

They’ve got our NICE vision equipment and PSIM solution. The sea port handles about 200 or 300 ships a year – it’s big oil, a real hub for petroleum.

They’ve got big oil tanker’s swimming by and they’ve got huge pipes going out so they can unload oil. So it’s critical and they don’t want anybody coming in, for obvious reasons.

If somebody gets too close to one of the pipes, it triggers off and sends someone down there. They’ve got speed boats patrolling it and cars to get on these people.

One of the biggest problems is there’s a beach a mile or two down the road. People sometimes swim or get their boat too close and they have to make sure they don’t get too involved.

But they’ve got some really cool stuff: sonar, radar, even underwater stuff. And from memory they’ve got about nine gateways and nine kinds of sensors, which they’re monitoring constantly.

Free Download: The Video Surveillance Report 2023

Discover the latest developments in the rapidly-evolving video surveillance sector by downloading the 2023 Video Surveillance Report. Over 500 responses to our survey, which come from integrators to consultants and heads of security, inform our analysis of the latest trends including AI, the state of the video surveillance market, uptake of the cloud, and the wider economic and geopolitical events impacting the sector!

Download for FREE to discover top industry insight around the latest innovations in video surveillance systems.

Download The Video Surveillance Report