Bristol is no different from any other major city in the UK in that it has to put up with its fair share of challenges, from inner-city crime through to congested roadways.
However, there’s a security system that’s helping the City Council’s teams to stay one step ahead of the game: the MIC1 – or ‘Metal Mickey’ – series of cameras from Forward Vision (a member of the Bosch Group).
Bristol City Council first started using MIC1 cameras eight years ago in a city centre surveillance role after the technology was recommended by installer Select Electrics. Local contractor Select had installed the fibre network infrastructure across the city, and was the Council’s principal contractor for the installation and maintenance of CCTV.
Security and traffic management
Select Electrics’ managing director Ray Murphy takes up the story. “At the time, MIC1 cameras were seen as quite a radical design. The Council needed to be convinced that this technology would realise the level of performance and reliability needed. There are now more than 250 cameras from the MIC1 series deployed in Bristol, not only for security reasons but also to assists traffic management. On sites where other manufacturers’ technology is installed, these cameras are gradually being replaced with MIC1 units as and when the budgets become available.”
Images from the cameras are transmitted to the City Council’s award-winning Control Room in the Council’s own offices. This facility is CCTV User Group Gold accredited, and boasts national accreditation for social alarm monitoring – it’s one of the few Council Control Room operations to be recognised in this way. The Council has recently been granted funding for a new monitoring wall and matrix system that will allow access to all council, traffic, police service and retail CCTV systems.
In charge of the Control Room is manager Gordon McLanaghan. “We first trialled one of the cameras in 2000, and we’ve never looked back,” explained McLanaghan in conversation with info4security. “They give us a level of flexibility and reliability that we need, and are sufficiently robust to be able to operate in a number of challenging environments. The cameras are also ‘plug-and-play’ which is excellent from an installation and maintenance perspective. If parts need to be replaced they can be changed with the minimum of downtime.”
Greater performance realised
The success of the cameras in a security surveillance capacity led the Council to look at MIC1’s for use in traffic management, itself monitored through a dedicated urban traffic Control Room.
“Whether for traffic management or city centre surveillance, the cameras used across the city may be viewed in either Control Room,” explained Gordon McLanaghan. “Recently, my colleagues in traffic secured funding to increase the number of cameras deployed, and because they could access the cameras we have already installed, they were able to extend their scheme quite dramatically. I recommended they use MIC1 cameras and, after a trial against a range of competitor technology, they agreed that the MIC1 models offered greater performance and better value for money.”
McLanaghan continued: “The quality of images and the effectiveness of the zoom from each of the cameras is second to none, but there are other advantages. It’s easy to configure Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) functionality, for example, on any of the cameras, which gives us tremendous flexibility, and their design makes them unobtrusive and aesthetically better looking. We’re replacing the old ‘shoebox’ cameras with MIC1 cameras wherever we can as budgets allow.”
Brushless motor technology in action
A further advantage is the use of brushless motor technology, as Select Electrics’ Ray Murphy suggested: “The use of brushless motors further improves what is already a brilliant performance. The ‘Metal Mickey’ has effectively become the benchmark that every other manufacturer aspires to and, with further investment now likely as Forward Vision’s now part of the Bosch brand, the quality is likely to improve still further.”
The latest MIC1 cameras to be installed in Bristol are units from the MIC1-400 aluminium and MIC1-400 infrared ranges. Both are rated to IP68 for effective environmental protection, are supplied with a choice of 18x or 36x true day/night camera modules and offer extremely flexible mounting options. The MIC1-400 infrared range benefits from built-in infrared illuminators that provide over 55 metres of illumination during the hours of darkness.