Much of the publicity for the forthcoming Beijing Games has focused on the environmental conditions and the city’s attempts to reduce the levels of smog across the city by August. This has extended to car reduction schemes and lower priced tickets for travel on the metro rail network being trialled to ease road congestion and pollution and encourage uptake of this rapidly expanding network.
To cope with the influx of visitors and demands on public transport, Beijing municipal government has invested heavily in its mass transit network (a programme that is set to continue until 2015, long after the medals have been awarded).
Last October the first of three new state-of-the-art metro rail lines was opened, Beijing Subway Line 5, boasting state-of-the-art carriages that will enable commuters to watch the Games on LCD screens and use mobile phones underground. With the increase in daily commuters (more than one million use the network each day) and increased threats associated with staging such large scale global events, further pressure is heaped on transit systems to provide a secure environment. Beijing’s subway system has invested in the next generation advanced real-time digital video surveillance solutions.
System has 3600 cameras
Over 70 metro stations will be connected to this new security system, incorporating 1,400 cameras in phase one and a further 2,200 cameras in subsequent phases. Line 5 is open now, Line 10 that includes the Olympic sub-route and the Airport Express Line 4 are both scheduled to open this year, well in advance of the Games, as well as a further new line in 2009. They will be monitored from the station monitoring rooms and from the central command and control centre, giving security personnel the power to identify risk and take action.
Using an advanced real-time distributed digital video security and surveillance solution from Nice Systems, it will help the surveillance teams to deal with any potential threat to commuter safety and/or inhibit the smooth running of the metro. Benefits include the ability to identify suspicious/unattended packages on a crowded platform and to automatically detect unauthorised entry into secured areas.
Surveillance scenario
Imagine the scenario at the 100-metre athletics final taking place on an August evening at the National Stadium. A capacity crowd of 91,000 is expected and many visitors are using the metro rail network to arrive at the site. However, an hour before the event (at peak travelling time) an unattended package is spotted by one of the surveillance team, on one of the subway platform’s standard analogue and PTZ cameras.
The next decision the operator makes has potentially far reaching repercussions. Does he raise an alert for the platform to be closed, halt trains through the station and inform emergency services, resulting in travel chaos and widespread panic? Or, should he send a security guard to the location to investigate further? That is a lot of pressure to place on the shoulders of a single camera operator.
With the new surveillance system in place the operator will be able to act quickly and replay the video in picture to immediately review how the package arrived on the platform, whilst simultaneously keeping check on the ongoing situation. Perhaps it is simply a man behaving irresponsibly and wandering from his bag whilst making a call on his mobile, or maybe signs indicate something more suspicious.
The point is that with the right information available at the right time, operators are able to make the right judgement calls regarding incidents they spot themselves, or those that are automatically detected and flagged up to them, in order to help keep commuters safe and the transport system moving.