An increase in CCTV cameras and management of surveillance data by Brisbane City Hall security staff has reduced incidents at the building from daily to monthly.
Brisbane City Council selected an EMC storage system to store and manage surveillance data captured from 200 cameras, 200 access points, 12 monitors and 130 channels of analytics.
The data has allowed staff to analyse the traffic flows of about 2800 visitors daily to the city hall with up to 4000 visitors during special events. The storage system has been in place since January 2013.
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City hall is the central hub of local government in Brisbane. Not only is it a public place where people can come to functions but it is also the office of the Lord Mayor and his staff.
Brisbane City Council and office of the Lord Mayor corporate security manager Paul Rishman said that prior to the security improvements, it was averaging three to four events per day such as vagrants wandering around the hall.
“We’re lucky if we get one incident a week now,” he said.
In addition to CCTV data, there is statistical analysis of a people counter system used to count everyone who enters the hall.
“We get daily reports and that allows us to identify the most commonly used doors. It also allows us to understand [people] movements so we can deploy security staff to look after the building,” Rishman said.
“People are a lot more aware that there are cameras because we have signage around the hall.”
He added that the council has a whole-of-city strategic plan to expand its CCTV capability in open spaces. In addition to the 200 CCTV units in city hall, the council operates 2000 cameras around the city.
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