IP Video Monitors, Protects Antwerp Traffic System

  • Dec 17, 2007

An integrated IP video CCTV system is providing monitoring for a traffic calming system in the Belgian city of Antwerp. The CCTV system monitors a series of automated bollards that regulate traffic on a number of the city’s streets, alerting the Antwerp Police to malfunctions, accidents and acts of vandalism.

The bollards can be lowered automatically during pre-determined hours or when buses and trams pass using on-board transponders. Local residents and other authorized people can gain access using a smart card reader or by entering a pin code via a keypad. The access control system shares the same network as the IP video for communication back to the local traffic center that is the equipment hub for the project. The CCTV video is then relayed to the Antwerp Police over a fiber IP-network some 6 miles away, where it is monitored and recorded. The traffic system was installed by TV Vialis-Paque, a joint venture between Vialis Traffic BV and Yvan Paque which was created specifically for this project.

The police operators use IndigoVision’s Control Center IP video and alarm management software to view live and recorded video from the cameras monitoring the bollards. IndigoVision’s MPEG-4 based compression technology ensures that video and data can be transmitted over large distances with minimal impact on the available bandwidth, without image degradation and with negligible latency. This means that the operators can view video images that are as good as analog and have smooth PTZ camera control even though their monitoring center is located 6 miles from the cameras. The high-quality video allows the police to easily identify the license plate number of vehicles that have been involved with incidents or that have damaged the bollards.

The IP video system removes the need for complex and costly switching matrices as used in traditional analog systems and replaces them with a virtual matrix. The virtual matrix allows any camera to be viewed and recorded from any point on the network. Antwerp Police have put this flexibility to good use by using the system to transmit video from an additional 14 CCTV cameras that are part of an existing standalone analog CCTV system based at the local traffic center.

Recording of the traffic bollard camera footage is achieved using five standalone IndigoVision NVRs again installed at the police control center. These record all cameras continuously at 4SIF for up to 7 days.

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