At the Steveston Harbour in Richmond, British Columbia, officials found that a wireless system connecting networked surveillance cameras was the security solution they needed.
The harbor, which considered among Canada's busiest commercial fishing harbor, not only faced issues of security, but also of enforcing port regulations. According to the harbor authority, the wireless video system, which transmit video via Firetide's wireless network, also helps prepare the area for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.
Port regulations included monitoring of international-traveling vessels that fall under the security requirements of the International Ship and Port Security Code. Video surveillance allowed for 24-hour monitoring of those vessels while in port.
The system uses 22 cameras around the harbor. Eight of those cameras are more than three kilometers from the security station -- a distance that could have made traditional cable-connected cameras cost prohibitive.
The port, which about 30 minutes from Vancouver, is home to over 700 vessels and is a main fishing harbor for harvesting seafood for North America. Expanding 70 acres (across water and land), the area faced issues with remote locations that were difficult to patrol.
“With the wireless cameras now in place, we can now respond more quickly and monitor multiple areas where theft is more active,†said Joel Baziuk, the operations supervisor for the Steveston Harbour Authority. “With Firetide, we placed cameras in areas we previously thought were too far for wireless equipment to reach or too expensive to trench with fiber. The network really exceeded our expectations.â€
Among other equipment, the system uses eight Firetide wireless mesh nodes, eight Sony IP cameras transmitting MPEG-4 video at 30 frames per second, and a megapixel surveillance camera from IQinVision at the gate which captures license plates of vehicles. The video is managed with Milestone Systems' video management software.
