The Charles Koch Arena at Wichita State University — home to the home to the Wichita State Shockers men's and women's basketball and women's volleyball teams — has more than 10,000 seats, and regularly draws full capacity crowds from both the university and the surrounding community. Campus police wanted to guard this environment pro actively, to maintain the highest levels of safety and enjoyment.
Paul W. Dotson, Chief of Police at Wichita State University , relates that the Koch Arena was identified as one of the top 20 critical infrastructures by the state and federal Homeland Security: “This university is a community-based institution, so much of our public are students, former students, and neighbors. Doing a vulnerability assessment of our campus, working together with the Department of Homeland Security, we identified that we had gaps in our safety net for such largely populated venues. The federal solution in funding was well-placed to address this.”
ISG Technology was tasked to deliver the system, which features the XProtect Enterprise IP video surveillance software from Milestone Systems to manage, schedule and control 31 network cameras from Axis Communications, in a mix of fixed and pan/tilt/zoom models. Cisco switches are used in the network fiber optic infrastructure installed during the building's renovation in 2003. Using the IT network in place, setting up the cameras was easy.
The surveillance software provides an overview of the entire facility, enabling campus officers to be proactive about safety in the busy venue. Live surveillance images are used to monitor crowd flow, check body language and send police to head off situations before they can escalate. When incidences do occur, they have the recorded video to resolve any questions or to use as evidence, also to analyze the environment for improvements.
“The networked surveillance approach saved costs by letting us use the existing IT infrastructure, and reduced some labor costs for static observation posts of officers at specific stations every hundred feet on the concourse. We then use those resources more efficiently by shifting them to deal with other conflicts or problems, making much better use of our time and dollars spent for security,” Dotson says.
Electronic Locks Protect Church Facilities in Texas
Grace Christian Center of Killeen, Texas , has deployed the CyberLock Access Control System from Videx to address physical access and key control problems. The system incorporates the existing mechanical lock hardware already in the church buildings, with the cylinders inside the existing mechanical locks replaced with CyberLock electronic cylinders.
“As the person in charge of security, the audit trail is one of the most important things CyberLock has provided us,” Pastor Steven Timmerman says. “It has increased accountability.”
The electronic key can be programmed to open doors to buildings, cabinets and offices and can be set to access specific locks on selected days and only during certain times on those days; thus reducing the number of keys each person has to carry. Timmerman says he went from carrying more than 20 keys, to now having a single CyberKey for almost all the locks around the facility.
“One of our biggest concerns was the need to re-key the entire facility every time someone lost a key,” Timmerman says. Prior to installing the CyberLock system, the loss of a master key had forced the church to completely re-key its facility three times over a six-year period.
Remote Monitoring at the U.S. Open
In an effort to bolster security and monitoring capabilities at the 2007 U.S. Open Championship golf tournament at Oakmont Country Club in Oakmont, Pa., Pittsburgh-area security and emergency response personnel used ThreatViewer , an integrated security product from Augusta Systems that provided remote monitoring capabilities.
“Sporting events and other high-profile entertainment venues draw large crowds and, therefore, require stepped-up security measures. ThreatViewer provided us with additional security enhancements, such as the capability of seeing in all directions at once from a single location,” said Chief Robert Full, emergency management coordinator for Allegheny County and chairman of the Pennsylvania Region 13 Task Force, a regional anti-terrorism and emergency response consortium.
The system, which was used in conjunction with the Allegheny County Mobile Command Center, captured and processed surveillance data and transmitted it to personnel at operations centers and in the field. The U.S. Open deployment is the second major sporting event to use the system -- it was also deployed at 2006 Major League Baseball All-Star Game events.
Rec Center Opts for Surveillance Solution
Parker Fieldhouse, a new 100,000-square-foot recreation center in the town of Parker, Colo., has implemented an Axis Communications video surveillance security solution for its allowing staff and public safety officers to monitor the multi-million dollar facility from on- and off-site locations.
Parker officials called on CDW-G, a technical advisory firm, for advice on the solution that would best meet the security requirements for the recreation center, which includes a gymnasium with two regulation-size hardwood basketball and volleyball courts, an in-line hockey rink with seating for 200 spectators, an artificial turf field with spectator seating, a rock-climbing tower, a suspended running track, a fitness area and batting cages.
Working with CDW-G to evaluate leading technology solutions, the town selected 18 motion-activated Axis 221 network cameras that are positioned inside and outside the facility, providing around-the-clock surveillance. Axis software is outfitted on a file server to record video, and a front desk monitoring station serves as a landing point for all video feeds, allowing employees to view up to 16 camera feeds at one time. The software also enables police dispatchers to log onto the system and view the cameras remotely via a Web page. In the event of a security incident, dispatchers can quickly convey critical information to officers responding on site.
“The cameras not only act as the eyes for our front desk staff, allowing them to see what is going on throughout the fieldhouse , but also provide near-instant information to law enforcement,” says Terry Denison, a Town of Parker systems analyst.
Head: Football Team Goes With Plastic Season Tickets
NFL Europe's Rhein Fire football team has deployed Zebra card printers to produce thousands of annual club passes for fans. The printers, supplied by Cards & More, a plastic card manufacturer, provided the Dusseldorf-based team with the ticketing system.
As the number of the team's fans has increased each year, team officials recognized the need to update its existing solution for producing annual passes and season tickets, resulting in a Zebra Card Printer 330i to produce season ticket passes as plastic cards.
"Most of our season ticket holders ordered their tickets as plastic cards," says Daniel Gergorz, Rhein Fire's ticket manager. "A proper printed image is very important for us because we not only print the description of block, row, and seat on the card, but also a bar code for the electronic admission control.
Reebok Sports Club Chooses Contactless technology
The Reebok Sports Club La Finca, considered to be one of the most prestigious sports clubs in Spain, features sports facilities covering an area of 125,000 square meters with a capacity for 6,000 members. Facilities include tennis and paddle tennis courts, basketball courts, beach volleyball, football fields, outdoor and children's swimming pools, hydrotherapy pool, fitness studio and many others.
The club relies on an efficient access control system that uses contactless technology from Legic Identsystems, developed and installed by its partner, Gantner Technologies in Austria .
The Club has more than 6,000 contactless credentials in use, which enable members and employees to access the facilities. The main forms of credential are a fabric and plastic bracelet, a watch and a card. There are four access turnstiles at the club, each containing two readers (one for entry and one for exit).
“Before the turnstiles were installed, the courts were always occupied, and the court managers used to go crazy because they could not fit everyone in, due to the considerable lack of control at the entrance,” says Carlos Inocencio, the Club's IT director. “Now that the turnstiles prevent free access, our staff can use the pass to check that the member wanting to get onto the courts really is a member, or whether their club dues are outstanding. This makes everything run more smoothly.
