16 September 2016

Police Scotland regularly deploys its mobile communications infrastructure to various events across the country, such as golf’s Open Championship held this year at Royal Troon, the Scottish Air Show, the Grand Prix of the Seas powerboat race that took place at Greenock in June, as well as football matches, music festivals, etc.

The infrastructure includes a fully kitted Mercedes van with a generator and backup batteries that also routes power provided by the venue to the CCTV cameras installed by the police at the site. 

The cameras are a mix of analogue and high-resolution IP devices. Site builds are sometimes challenging for Police Scotland’s overt engineers, with some venues requiring the mobile unit to connect to cameras across considerable distances of coaxial cable networks to record large volumes of streamed IP camera data.

As a result, the police vehicle has been enhanced to take advantage of new technology enabling it to quickly integrate with diverse CCTV systems and local infrastructure within a small footprint to fit the limited rack environment. Network video specialist Veracity implemented the upgrade which includes Instek’s CCLite as the VMS client solution, with a pair of Instek 2U 16 channel recorders for the video feeds.  

Veracity’s HIGHWIRE Powerstars and CAMSWITCH Quads were installed into the Mercedes to connect to the cameras via a centrally-deployed Peli case which links back to the vehicle through the embedded site network.

The combination of night/day, thermal and HD cameras positioned across a venue are all controlled centrally from the vehicle, and are field-tested with a laptop nearer the camera position using Instek’s recently released CCLite app. This means that the presentation of the camera feed to the controller’s screen can now be seen on a tablet or smartphone, providing even more flexibility for commanders on the ground.

Veracity says that it is now feasible for Police Scotland to deploy and be fully active with a fully-functioning security control suite on site within three hours
of leaving their station.

David MacGregor, the force’s senior technical officer, adds: “Veracity’s ability to provide innovative solutions and reliable products has enabled us to continue upgrading our vehicles and exploit emerging technology in a very tight space, without having to revisit the system connectivity.”