Security for Public Transportation: Take the Bus

The Transportation Department of Ningbo in China faced many of the common problems with security on their buses. They needed to protect their assets and provide for the safety and security of passengers and drivers. Their security system would have to provide evidence in the event of theft or injury, and to help settle disputes between passengers and staff.

The Ningbo City Bus mobile surveillance project, one of the largest transportation installations in the country, covers more than 3,600 buses belonging to 14 transportation companies in Ningbo city. The surveillance system had to support high quality video playback and store video data going back 2 weeks.

Anti-shock technology would be adopted as well to ensure normal functioning of the mobile surveillance system when the bus is in motion. Hikvision created a high-quality mobile solution which consisted of the DS-8004HMF-B mobile DVR, the DS-1002HM-S mobile DVR backup device and the DS-2CC512P color dome camera to meet these requirements.

Extensive Coverage
In this mobile surveillance system, one Hikvision camera was installed each in the windshield, the carriage, near the front door and the exit of each bus, providing surveillance coverage of more than 90% of the bus. The camera installed in the windshield mainly monitors whether the drivers goes through a red light, which could easily lead to traffic accidents.

The camera fixed above the driver mainly monitors whether passengers enter the bus without tickets. The camera in the middle of the bus monitors the security status (theft or dispute) throughout the bus and the camera at the exit keeps an eye on the behavior of passengers getting off the bus. This system has a strong deterrent effect on criminals as well as on unruly passengers, effectively ensuring the safety of the drivers, passengers and their property. In addition, if there are complaints about drivers from the passengers or a dispute amongst the passengers, the related video footage can be retrieved and viewed for reference.

No Glitches
In contrast to the mobile surveillance systems used in other cities, the Ningbo City Bus surveillance system has a significant advantage as it delivers a high-quality video stream. Using the H.264 video codec, the mobile DVR supports real-time viewing and playback with a resolution of up to 4CIF.

The color dome camera delivers a horizontal resolution of 480 TVL (752x582) and also features a color and B/W auto switch, ensuring high image quality for 24/7 monitoring. Hikvision's mobile DVR also features anti-shock technology for reliable performance. It can effectively avoid damage to the hard disk drives as well as making the surveillance system function normally when the bus is running. The GPS module embedded in the mobile DVR can help the security staff to locate the bus via an e-map on the client software and take quick action should an emergency occur.

Local Storage
„As more than 3,600 buses are equipped with surveillance products, it's unrealistic to pay attention to the on-site status of each bus simultaneously," said Chongguan Jin, vice director of scientific and information department in Ningbo city public transportation head office. „In addition, real-time video transmission would mean higher cost, so for now we chose to store the video data locally for playback and retrieval instead of real-time monitoring in this project."

To realize this local high-capacity storage, the Ningbo transportation department chose hard disk drives of up to 750GB each, which can store video data for at least the past 15 days. The mobile DVR backup device was also used in this project for video data backup. With an e-SATA interface, it can be connected to the mobile DVR for high-speed video data backup in any specified time frame.

Though this project didn't utilize real-time monitoring, the transportation department knows it may decide to upgrade the system at a future time. For this reason, the reserved network interfaces in the system will allow for wireless network video transmission to deliver real-time video/audio and alerting signals to the monitoring centers if required. Other interfaces are also set up on the mobile DVRs for passenger counting, GPS positioning and easy addition of other functions.

Security Up, Crime Down
„To date, this project has covered most of the public bus routes in Ningbo City," said Jin. „After evaluation of the products' utility, stability and reliability by actual use, Hikvision's products have proven to be superior to the surveillance products that have been used in the buses of other cities in China."

The general manger of Ningbo city public transportation head office, Dezhi Zhu said „This video monitoring system has obviously improved the security level of Ningbo bus transportation routes and dramatically decreased the rate of crime or illegal action on our buses. The safety of passengers and their property is ensured, and the service quality of the transportation companies has also had a correspondingly positive change."

„As mobile surveillance is becoming more critical and transportation departments begin to depend on surveillance systems to detect crime, there is an increasing demand for high performance mobile surveillance products and solutions," said Polo Cai, Vice President of Hikvision. „In addition to the city buses in Ningbo, our mobile surveillance solutions have also been used in many transportation projects in other major domestic cities, and we expect our products and solutions to be applied more in transportation projects worldwide."