The City of Eilat Drives Israel’s Smart City Initiative with the Deployment of Advanced Behavioral Analytics

  • Apr 13, 2021

viisights Inc. has recently deployed a new installation in the city of Eilat, Israel to detect, predict and analyze events of interests in real-time and alert authorities of crowding, violent/suspicious activity, traffic or crowd congestion, and more. Deployment of the unique behavioral analytics solution was fast-tracked in preparation for the large number of tourists who typically flood the city during the Passover and upcoming holiday season.

viisights behavioral analytics are integrated into the city’s extensive surveillance system, which includes more than 300 cameras that are monitored at a centrally located command and control center. viisights can monitor hundreds of cameras in real-time, and upon recognition or prediction of unusual behavior a command center operator receives an immediate alert and can notify the authorities.

Eilat is the first city in Israel to advance Israel’s smart city “City without Violence” initiative. Avinoam Nahari, director of the city’s information methods and systems division in charge of the project, said that the viisights behavioral analytics solution enables the city to quickly and efficiently address abnormal events for the benefit of its residents and visitors’ safety and security.

Maya Scheyer, vice president of global business development and sales at viisights, said that the company’s innovative behavioral analytics leverage the latest advancements in imaging technology to deliver new benchmarks in video intelligence that transcend traditional real-time surveillance monitoring and forensics by providing actionable intelligence to minimize liabilities and prevent incidents from escalating. Unlike conventional video analytics that use old pixel technology to recognize static objects and classify objects, viisights behavioral analytics employ AI to autonomously detect, analyze, and understand actions and events. This unprecedented level of video understanding is based on a unique implementation of deep neural networks capable of analyzing and defining specific activities using video streams from conventional security cameras.

Eilat deployed the viisights solution to autonomously increase situational awareness and generate alerts on events of interest such as crowding events in areas and locations where COVID-19 guidelines are not being followed, predicting gatherings by monitoring traffic and people’s movement towards a certain location.

Eli Lankri, deputy and acting mayor of Eilat leading the Israel’s Smart City program said, “As a city that ranks high in Israel’s smart cities index, we’re proud of this innovative system which will enable us to maintain the public’s safety and security, and its health under the current COVID-19 pandemic.”

Asaf Birenzvieg, viisights CEO added, “We’re proud to take part in this national effort and provide a critical component of the “City without Violence” project to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and get life back on track while maintaining the COVID-19 guidelines. Given Eilat’s status as one of Israel’s most popular tourism cities, we are extremely proud to be part of this national effort.”

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