An end-to-end IDIS video solution has overcome performance, quality, and affordability challenges that had hampering public space surveillance in Bristol city centre. The upgrade, which tackled a growing list of problems including degraded picture quality, unreliable transmission and data storage, and poor usability, has been completed at Temple Quay and Glass Wharf by KIS Fire & Security.
The successful project is now enabling significant operational improvements by the 24/7 security team which manages the site, says property manager Avison Young. The company reports faster responses to medical incidents and more effective prevention of petty crime and antisocial behaviour, thanks to surveillance coverage without blind spots and the ease with which officers can now retrieve and export GDPR-compliant video evidence to support police investigations.
Temple Quay and Glass Wharf are part of the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone which is home to hundreds of businesses, government offices, serviced offices and co-working spaces, bars, restaurants, and residential properties. The original video system at the site was almost twenty years old and proving to be increasingly unreliable, with underground cabling and equipment prone to flooding and cameras producing increasingly poor-quality images. The problems were made worse by a cumbersome VMS operating system, says KIS director Rob Morgan: “The prospect of a complete system upgrade seemed daunting because it would need complete replacement of the backbone infrastructure, cameras, recorders etc. and a new VMS management system. But we were able to satisfy Avison Young with IDIS technology, showing them a major public space system that we’d recently completed for Bristol Zoological Society.”
The new solution, managed by the cost and licence-free IDIS Center VMS, includes NDAA-compliant 8MP IDIS PTZ cameras delivering superior images at up to 31x zoom; vandal-resistant 5MP IR dome cameras; 8-ch 4K recorders supporting UHD display; a specialist network operator’s keyboard; plus, mountings, POE switches, and all other network accessories.
KIS completed the upgrade ahead of schedule in under four months, with rapid installation supported by IDIS plug-and-play DirectIP® technology ensuring instant and seamless functionality of all devices. The system is also easier to use and now gives the security team complete area coverage, including full visibility along – and across – a waterway which runs through the site.
“With IDIS, instant full functionality of all devices means we can be more certain about completion times, even for major public space projects like Temple Quay and Glass Wharf,” says Rob Morgan. “The system also comes with extended warranties, and failover protection against loss of data in the event of network instability - for public area surveillance this kind of reliability is essential.”
“Following our successful partnership with the award-winning solution for Bristol Zoo, IDIS was delighted to support KIS with this major city centre surveillance project,” says Jamie Barnfield, Senior Sales Director, IDIS Europe. “Both these projects show video technology at its best, helping to create welcoming public spaces where people can feel safe.”
