Improved Surveillance
Louisiana’s Port Fourchon deploys IP video at strategic oil site
- By Courtney Dillon Pedersen
- Apr 01, 2014
Port Fourchon plays a strategic role in supplying the United
States with nearly 18 percent of its oil supply, servicing over
90 percent of the Gulf of Mexico’s deep-water exploration
and production. As the first land point of contact, this includes
more than 600 rigs and platforms within a 40-mile radius. Securing
such an essential portion of the Gulf Coast requires a handson
team of security professionals to watch for unauthorized activities
and enhance the safety of workers and officers.
Louisiana’s Port Fourchon has unique safety standards to combat
potentially devastating safety issues that may damage vessels, equipment
and products, and injure people working at the port. Obsolete
surveillance equipment previously used to monitor the area was not
sufficient to support the port’s new GLPC-C4 (C4) platform, so a new
video management system was required to provide clearer imaging,
improved storage capabilities, wider coverage and flexible video management.
When evaluating options, Port Fourchon officials chose
Milestone XProtect Enterprise video management software (VMS).
Milestone XProtect Enterprise software has been deployed by
Convergent Technologies to manage 64 cameras from Bosch and Pelco.
With Milestone’s ability to display video in real time and its open
platform architecture for integration with analytics from BRS Labs,
the port’s staff has the benefit of a much more comprehensive and responsive
video surveillance resource. Alerts from the video analytics
system are fed through XProtect, and then to the port’s C4 platform,
where they are integrated with other alerts to create improved overall
situational awareness. Several strategic elements are deployed in
the port’s surveillance network, and these elements work in unison to
create complete behavioral analytics.
The biggest advantage seen by the port is the ability to have the
dispatchers—through the C4 common operating picture interface—
pull up all camera views that they need to address an alert or an incident.
It is easy to add more cameras to the port’s surveillance network,
which the port did in conjunction with the installation of a new
radar system from DMT, since the Milestone open platform supports
the largest variety of manufacturer models.
“On a day-to-day basis, we are observing numerous points of interest
throughout the port, in addition to providing a helping hand
to the security officers,” said April Danos, director of IT at Port Fourchon.
“The video surveillance system has been taken to an entirely
new level, integrating multiple systems for complete coverage. This
open platform allows us to feed video analytics and disparate cameras
through it, and the entire port is benefiting immensely.”
A Top Hub in Our Nation’s Oil Supply Chain
About 80 percent of all Gulf oil comes from deep water. In addition
to being the premier service base for the Gulf ’s tremendous domestic
hydrocarbon supply, Port Fourchon is the land base for Louisiana
Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which handles 10 percent of imported oil.
Port security and the police have their work cut out for them, ensuring
the nation’s oil supply and every piece of equipment used to
transport the product, workers and vessels are kept secure on a dayto-
day basis.
The previous surveillance system, installed more than a decade
ago, was not up to the standards required by the port for its new C4
installation. Many members of the port’s security department and police
force experienced difficulties with the existing video system for
its less-than-user-friendly interface, slow feeds, minimal storage and
the need for more cameras.
“We all agreed that our new video management system should be
easy to integrate and allow us to dovetail with our legacy equipment,
while having an opportunity to shop around for upgraded hardware
without any proprietary restrictions,” Danos said. “The ability to scale
up over the years to increase the port’s protection was another very
important aspect that needed to be addressed with the incoming
VMS solution.”
Key points in the port’s request for proposals included a system
with minimal maintenance requirements, video display in real time,
user-friendly operation and the ability to easily integrate a variety of
already installed and soon-to-be-installed components, servers, cameras
and analytics software, for instance.
GLPC-C4
Priority 5’s Touch Assisted Command and Control System (TACCS)
powers the port’s C4 system. TACCS is an all-hazard, command and
control, operations platform that integrates the VMS inputs with
other data feeds to support the port’s security and situational awareness.
Developed in response to situational awareness requirements of
the Defense Department, the platform aligned with Port Fourchon’s
vision for a centralized system into which all elements would be integrated,
providing directors and police with full coverage of the analytics,
radar, access control and security systems.
“Our goal is to enable the port to use TACCS and its open architecture
to create the most comprehensive and flexible situational
awareness solution possible,” said Joe Kammerman, vice president of
Priority 5. “Working with other companies, such as Milestone, that
designs their solutions around open architectures, has proven to create
a real value to customers, especially in today’s environment where
budgets are tighter and people need to do more with less.”
With input from the port and other early adopters, TACCS and
the C4 system have evolved over the years, and now provide wide
area situational awareness and response capabilities to Port Fourchon’s
Harbor Police dispatchers, Lafourche Parish Sheriff ’s Office,
the parish EOC, LOOP, and the port administrative, operations and
IT departments.
“Many companies claim to provide an integrated system, but what
they deliver is more likely to consist of a large number of windows
scattered on a screen, without any data integration,” Danos said.
“Milestone’s integration of video management and very detailed analytics
literally gives our operators one single data feed through which
the port’s entire surveillance system can be readily accessed, as needed.
We don’t miss a beat, which is priority number one when dealing
with the safety of those at the port.”
The Setup
Several C4 stations throughout the port contain command centers
equipped with the VMS: three within the main office in Galliano, La.;
one setup two miles from the port in the harbor police headquarters;
and one in the port itself. The LOOP system is networked into the
Milestone software and Lafourche Parish Sherriff ’s Office, with access
to the port’s live feeds. The Federal Emergency Management Agency
(FEMA) also is connected to the port for cases of emergency, and
each registered user in the port security team has immediate access
to video archives, going back as far as two months.
“We have a good mixture of different makes and models of camera
hardware and different analytics strategically deployed,” Danos said.
“We are pleased with the way Milestone’s open platform enables us
to explore multiple opportunities without worry of technology being
rejected or reworking our entire system. All of the systems we implement
in the port are brought in with the security factor in mind.”
All of the port’s surveillance systems work in unison with a behavior
analytics system. Milestone is the only interface that can process
this large amount of information, according to Bruce Whitaker of
BRS Labs.
“Alerts come right through the port’s Milestone XProtect setup,”
said Whitaker. “We can provide a brief clip of any target, time-anddate
stamp it and inject it into the alarm. The users are looking at
real-time video with the alerts built right in. No event goes unseen.”
The Benefits
The software is a day-to-day video management system, providing
video inputs and archives to officers at the port to protect against
criminal activity while helping to identify damage done to the docks
or vessels that have been left unattended for long periods of time.
“Nothing held up to the qualities of Milestone when we were researching
for the port software integration,” Whitaker said. “During
the selection process, its capabilities were front and center. If we had
any limit on our VMS options, we wouldn’t have a fraction of the
benefits the port offers its security team now.”
As the video product feeds the C4 common operating picture,
dispatchers maintain the big picture while having the ability to monitor
video surveillance throughout the port. There are hundreds of
continuous activities going on throughout the port at any time. With
all systems integrated, the officers can concentrate on security itself,
while not worrying about the system working properly.
“The port has transformed its security platform to a new level,”
Danos said. “We are working to be as far-sighted as possible, with the
integration of our numerous, best-of-breed applications so that the
C4 system will always provide the highest level of maritime domain
awareness. Starting with the Milestone open platform has allowed us
to integrate numerous video applications through it, and the entire
port is benefiting immensely.”
This article originally appeared in the April 2014 issue of Security Today.