Irvine, Calif. is a busy stop for rail commuters traveling between San Diego and Los Angeles. Until recently, the 650,000 passengers annually boarding Amtrak, Metrolink and Orange County Transportation Authority (OTCA) trains at Irvine had to hope for a parking space in a 500-space lot. Many were forced to park on an adjacent dirt lot that became a muddy mess during California’s winter rains.
Just over a year ago, OTCA opened a four-level, 1,500-space garage at a cost of $26.8 million. The structure includes restrooms, pay phones and ATM machines. Food services, bike lockers, vending machines, newsstands and a rental car service are only yards away.
And now the garage also has security system that includes more than 40 IP cameras (both fixed and pan-tilt-zoom), video analytics and 16 emergency call stations. The cameras are monitored 24/7 by a private guard service at an onsite control room. The video is also streamed over a 10GB fiber backhaul to the Irvine Police headquarters about seven miles away. There it is recorded on servers with 120TB storage capacity.
Paul Slaman, national accounts manager for ADT Security Services, said an ADT project team was able to complete the job five days ahead of schedule. Although that didn’t include two extra cameras installed weeks later after station managers found that exterior of nearly 7,000 square feet of retail space built as part of the garage had become popular with skateboarders.
“Those extra cameras gave the security staff a good view of the area and they responded each time skateboarders arrived until they got the message and stayed away,” Slaman said.
He said he was not surprised that Irvine would be interested in providing such a robust security system for its parking garage. Based on FBI statistics, Irvine has been named America’s safest large (100,000+ population) city for five consecutive years.
“This is a city where the leaders are very concerned about the safety of their residents,” Slaman said.
– PSW Staff
