Axis Communications shares implementation details of smart cities at Axis Solutions Day 2018

Axis Communications, at Axis Solutions Day 2018, shared implementation details of their large-scale community CCTV Nenu Saitham project in Hyderabad City. The annual event showcased their integrated smart solutions in IP Audio, Retail Suite and Thermal cameras. Centered on the theme, The Future in Integrated Security Solutions, the event brought to fore Axis’ recent India success stories and their key takeaways from prestigious surveillance implementations across the country, including the Mysore City Palace project.

The Government of Telangana has been proactive in adopting a one-of-its kind smart surveillance implementation. With this community CCTV programme, the Hyderabad City Police is encouraging enterprises, public sectors, residential associations and individuals to invest in CCTV’s procured from government empaneled firms. They will then setup a monitoring centre in their own colonies which in turn can be integrated with the nearest police stations and the Central Command Center. This will track, monitor and analyse the video feed for detecting criminal activities, traffic violations and road conditions real time. According to the project, an entity or individual can buy a CCTV system that will cover the premise entry, exit and parking areas to the extent of 50 yards on the road, along with storage and video screen for self-monitoring within the colony. The Government of Telangana will provide the back-end connectivity to the Police Stations, Command Control Centre along with real-time Video Analytics.

Mahender Reddy, the Director General of Hyderabad Police asserted, “The impact of CCTV installations in Hyderabad City police jurisdiction has been astounding, leading to a huge reduction in overall crime rate by 32 % in the last three years (2014-17) and reduction of 90.6% in chain-snatchings incidents during this period. Additionally, the Govt of Telangana is planning to install 15 lakh cameras across the State in the next three years.”

Highlighting the efforts that led to the success of the Hyderabad implementation, Sudhindra Holla, Sales Director – India and SAARC, Axis Communications said, “We are proud to be a partner of choice for The Hyderabad community CCTV project. This is an example of community participation towards building a safer and secured smart city. We have 1,500 camera installations across the city to track, monitor and analyze the video feed for detecting criminal activities, traffic violations, and road conditions. With our strong portfolio of product line-up, we aim to support the authorities to deliver high surveillance and build a model Smart City and eagerly look forward to the phase two implementation.”

“Axis carries a rich lineage of over 35 years in India and during the time, we understand the pulse of the India market. With an estimated budget of ₹2.09 lakh crores for smart city programmes by the Government, we are upbeat that high end surveillance solutions are the need of the hour,” he added.

Speaking on the Mysore Palace implementation, Sudhindra emphasized, “The project was challenging as the site continued to operate even during the installation. Mysore Palace, being one of the most visited heritage sites of India, we had to ensure that the work was seamless with minimum disruption. We also had to create a multi-point wireless network to ensure the infrastructure had the ability to support the new cameras as well as the management software across the area for crowd and queue management.”

Security and surveillance are an integral part of all societies. With the government’s smart city projects gaining momentum, there is a dire need of new age IP Video integrated end to end solutions to deliver high business value. Axis ‘Smart’ security implementation not only provides a better quality of life with clean and sustainable environment, but also promises a safer city. Some of the major smart city implementations include Aurangabad, Bhavnagar, Kolhapur and Junagadh. In the retail and hospitality segments Axis smart implementation includes Cafe Coffee Day and Novotel Goa Shrem Hotels, respectively. One of the prominent installations in the education segment is Dayalbagh Educational Institute. Axis also boasts of the prestigious Mysore Palace (heritage site), surveillance implementation, among many others.

Video surveillance has seen a paradigm shift in India with security becoming a priority for both the Government and enterprises. With an increase in the number of cyber-attacks which exposes vulnerabilities, dealing with well-resourced cybercriminals becomes a challenge. If left unaddressed, these could lead to networks being breached, ransomware to be planted or, be responsible for costly downtime. The answer is to be proactive and systematic for ensuring that patches are implemented as soon as they are available.

Recording high-resolution videos with in-built compression is what today’s IP video surveillance capable of. There are multiple benefits of using IP-based surveillance to provide efficient security in the smart cities arena, like video analytics, environmental sensors and support in law enforcement for departments to gather evidence during investigations. Further integrated, with IP Audio, it can be used to make scheduled or live announcements, and to track security violation in manufacturing/industrial sites. On the other hand, thermal cameras using thermal imaging and enhanced low-light capabilities have taken the smart surveillance a step ahead. With built-in analytics, such as Video Motion Detection helps detect motion from moving objects within a predefined area, these intelligent solutions are useful for environments where privacy is of utmost importance like – schools and care homes.