When the second stage of this installation is complete, Wollongong’s public surveillance solution will integrate 180 IP cameras in multiple locations, with multiple monitoring points and a single archive solution. Now linked, or in the process of being linked to the network, are Wollongong Police Station, Wollongong City Gallery, and the main monitoring station in an office building on Crown St Mall, Council’s main administration building on Burelli St, the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre and the RTA regional office. These elements form the heart of a system that will continue to expand significantly to include government and commercial locations keen to benefit from the system’s positive momentum.

The key to the system’s success is the fact it is a living surveillance solution, not an investigative tool designed to help courts pick up the pieces. In Wollongong City Centre, the CCTV system is constantly monitored and response comes not only from NSW Police based at Wollongong Police Station. There are also 3 dedicated security officers, including 2 Special Constables, based in a control room on Crown St Mall whose dual roles are to monitor the system and respond to events as they occur.

This might seem an unusual brief but it’s extraordinarily effective. Images gathered by the CCTV system in the past 18 months have led to more than 700 arrests for offences ranging from petty crimes and fraud, to shop lifting, assault, drug dealing and more.

The system is really Wollongong City Centre Ltd’s General Manager Paul Fanning’s baby. WCC Ltd is a stand-alone company with delegated authority from Council, that manages, provides marketing, events and promotions and crime prevention strategies for the ‘Gong’s city centre for Wollongong Council. It’s like the Business Improvement Districts in the UK and USA and Wollongong is regarded as one of the most successful of its type in Australia.

In some ways it’s not surprising the CCTV system has been successful. You can tell Fanning loves what he does. Fanning thinks strategically and he brings a private enterprise mentality to his dealings with government and public officers.

For many years Fanning was convinced the best way to both prevent and detect crime in Wollongong’s busy Crown St Mall and the wider City Centre was with use of IP surveillance cameras but it was a tough sell, especially given the fact IP was not being taken seriously in the electronic security industry.

Fanning has a delightful enthusiasm for his digital CCTV system, his appetite clearly piqued by having to wait for technology to catch up with his expectations. A forward and strategic thinker, Fanning embraced the benefits of full digital early and could not be swayed. He had offers of analogue cameras with encoders as field devices and networked back-ends, but he was steadfast in his belief that this new system should not install, in his opinion, aging technology, but a system that can be built on and expanded for many years to come.

Fanning wanted full digital and for him that meant blue cable to the camera replete with PoE. And Fanning wasn’t just fixated on cameras as edge devices. He wanted the core of his CCTV system – including archiving and backup power – to be supported by Council’s IT department. And not just maintenance support – Fanning wanted all the CCTV system’s hardware to be sitting in the server room of Wollongong Council’s Administration Building on Burelli St – 4 blocks away from the Crown St Mall monitoring station.

After many months of personal research, Fanning’s interest was heightened when he saw an IP solution at Port Macquarie Airport. That system appealed and while Fanning admits he did not always understand the jargon surrounding IT technology, it’s obvious he clearly understood the modularity of IT infrastructure and appreciated the cost and functionality benefits accruing from leverage of existing IT networks.

Ironically it was at the Airport that Fanning met local consultant from Real Time Communications Hugh Sheil, whose belief in the ascendancy of networked surveillance systems closely matched his own. It was Sheil who turned Fanning’s ideas into a plan and integrator TPE and wholesaler Pacific Communications who turned those plans into reality.

Fanning’s vision benefited from a number of key characteristics of the Wollongong CBD. The first big benefit was that there was no existing CCTV system installed in the Mall and its surrounds - such a system would have come with a legacy analogue cable plant. The second big benefit was the fact that underneath Wollongong’s Crown St Mall lay a network of unused conduits owned by the Council.

“Basically I was up at Port Macquarie looking at the surveillance system there and I said to Hugh Sheil – this is the type of system I need, I’ve researched it, I know IP technology is the way CCTV is going – we don’t need tapes, DVRs or any of that – we need IP,” Fanning explains.

“By fate as it turned out, Hugh lived locally and knew the area well so I asked if he would write a new specification to a tender that would give us full IP CCTV,” Fanning says. 

“I have to admit, this system has been a passion for me for many years. To see the surveillance system in and working successfully – it’s very pleasing”

Fanning says the impact of a high quality street CCTV system in Wollongong has been dramatic.

“Since January 2007 we’ve had nearly 700 arrests – we have had credit card fraud, shoplifting as well as picking up things that have happened elsewhere like assaults. Additionally, police use the system to gather intelligence on criminal activity and then make arrests

“We work extremely closely with the NSW Police – every week we have police officers in here viewing footage to help in their investigations for activity that has happened all over the area and sometimes further into the region.”

Fanning says that while it’s important, CCTV is not the be all and end all – instead it’s another tool in a crime prevention strategy.

“Our overall strategy includes crime prevention through environmental design, improved lighting, clear sightlines, the removal of trees if necessary – CCTV is a part of all this,” Fanning says.

“But we have found that, locally, CCTV is extremely effective in stopping crime and if it does occur, CCTV is of great assistance in investigating criminal events. 

“From a management perspective it’s good to know that the system is a great crime prevention tool whose success has had a flow-on effect,” Fanning says. “Going IP was the right move. You don’t want DVRs, CDs, backups and their protocols – here it’s straight to the server room in Council’s Admin building with full backup systems, air conditioning – we get fantastic support.”

According to Fanning, the key element in relation to the CCTV system is that Wollongong Council has an extremely efficient and capable IT department that understands what he and Council management is trying to achieve with IP surveillance.

“Having that IT group there has made a real difference,” Fanning explains. “A lot of the work of setting up the network side of this solution was put on them – the support of the IT guys at Wollongong Council headed up by Paul Marskell, Jeff Howells, Mark Leonard and Wayne Fussell has been excellent.

“The DVTel management solution is great too – it offers all the functionality we need not just from a monitoring point of view but in terms of the open architecture networking we need to do.

“Overall it’s a great system that just works and it’s hard to believe this is one of the only full IP systems of its size in Australia,” Fanning says.

The solution

The full digital nature of the DVTel networked solution at Wollongong allows a very flexible interpretation of surveillance with monitoring facilities at multiple points and cameras installed wherever required. There are 2 workstations in the Crown St Mall monitoring station, a dedicated workstation in the police station, another in the art gallery, one in the Council Admin building and another in the RTA building. Future workstations will be installed at WIN Entertainment Centre and the Wollongong Youth Centre.

“Like all big systems this one is a work in progress and it’s constantly growing and developing,” says consultant, Hugh Sheil. “At the moment we’re integrating the Council’s Administration Building, which currently has a legacy hybrid system installed, and we’re also in the process of replacing servers and other hardware and finalizing our upgrade to DVTel Latitude NVMS V5.”

Sheil says the key to the system was the fact that in the planning stages there was much digging around looking at plans and drawings of infrastructure in the area and during this process spare Council conduits were discovered running through the mall. That was for just Stage 1. In planning Stage 2 unused RTA conduits were found running under most of the city centre.

“Paul approached RTA management and they said ‘yes, we’ve got these conduits’ and Paul said, ‘what if we gave you some camera views that allowed you to monitor the traffic in exchange for letting us use of some of them’?” Sheil explains. “This was a good deal for both parties because RTA then could monitor roads around the Wollongong CBD. In addition, the Police would have even more cameras at their disposal for monitoring and investigation.”

Sheil says that the existing RTA conduits are linked by fibre connections carried through existing infrastructure and a few short under bores put in during Stage 1 of the installation. A handful of these bores allowed Council to create a significant network at minimal expense using RTA’s existing conduits to link Council buildings and the police station to the fibre network.

“The Australian Govt, NSW Police, TPE, Pacom and RTA have been fantastically supportive and that level of support really typified much of the reaction to this system right from the very beginning”

Sheil says the initial installation in Crown St Mall was finished in Jan 2007 and incorporated 44 cameras.

“Integrator TPE did the large Stage 1 of the system – which is the Crown St Mall – while Council handled the IT side of that install,” Sheil says. “In a smaller secondary integration, Siemens installed cameras at the Illawarra Performing Arts Centre and the Art Gallery. The expansive and technically diverse Stage 2 of the system, which is over the wider city centre, including the termination cabinets and fibre, will again be handled by TPE with Council doing the IT.

“From an operational perspective the Crown St Mall segment of the system is designed so that anyone approaching the entrances to the mall will be recorded and can be clearly identified,” Sheil says. “Other cameras in the mall are set up to view incidents and these combined camera views mean that if an incident is taken to court the evidence is greatly strengthened,” Sheil says.

“Identification is an important capability of this system because security officers and police use it in real time to view criminal activities and react to them,” Sheil explains. “Also important is the fact that while cameras are recorded at 12 frames, 4 CIF, they’re monitored at 25 frames per second.”

In terms of the system’s structure, cameras are linked using Cat-6 cable to termination cabinets in the field, containing 8-port or 24-port HP Procurve PoE switches. While fixed cameras are run on Cat-6 in a star configuration, PTZ cameras need an additional power supply so they’re supported by Cat-6 and power cables.

Sheil says the control of the PTZ’s are over the network and there is a network interface point within 90 metres of any point within the coverage area which means you can add a camera or by running a Cat 6 cable to the required location without the need for additional power supplies.

“Once onto the fibre LAN, the signal travels to the admin building’s server room via several core switches and then onto archivers with 40TB of storage that hold footage for 21 days” Sheil says. “At the same time images from all cameras are available for monitoring in real time at multiple workstations across the network, all you need to set up a monitoring station is a network connection and a PC.

“Most this system’s networking components are off-the-shelf and non-proprietary, so council’s not locked into any one supplier, which is important here. There’s a 24-hour replacement deal with HP and the CCTV system is included in Council’s overall network maintenance program.

“Archiving servers are in the computer room of Council’s admin building so they are supported with backup power and air conditioning, same as the rest of the network,” explains Sheil. “We also have a couple of concentrator switches in various locations in the field.

“Same as most CCTV applications, we’re limited for space and have to manage heat in small spaces which can be a challenge,” he says. “We have a series of interesting termination points – one in a bridge, one in a fountain and one in the mall’s amphitheatre.”

Sheil agrees with Fanning that an important element of the system was support from Council’s IT department.

“The IT guys got their heads around the system straight away but it took a bit longer for everyone else to get a handle on how it would function,” Sheil explains. “The IT department is very supportive - if anything happens on the network the IT department is all over it. This system is self monitoring and that’s a big advantage in terms of reliability.”

Sheil says switchers, storage and servers are all supported as part of the IT maintenance program.

“The IT department has also had training in how to maintain the DVTel V5 software,” Sheil explains. “It means there’s a lot more depth in support than you would normally get from a contractor with a couple of IT guys – Council’s IT department is monitoring network health in real time.”

Along with IT support, and the savings you get with use of off-the-shelf hardware, the full digital nature of this solution has other advantages. Sheil says the art gallery installation highlights the flexibility of DVTel’s PoE IP cameras.

“Because the spaces in a gallery are flexible and constantly changing, instead of fixed installation points, there are patch points with set zoom and focus. Depending on the displays in the gallery, cameras can be moved around from patch point to patch point,” Sheil explains.

“This means it’s possible to plug and play cameras wherever you need them to be in relation to a particular show - art gallery technical staff handle this on a day-to-day basis.”

Sheil says an important aspect of the system is business involvement and he explains that this support has enhanced the overall solution.

“Businesses are very helpful,” he explains. “They’re keen to allow us to use power from their buildings or mount cameras on their buildings and this has allowed us to get the best camera views. Improving security and safety in Crown St Mall is a priority for everyone and we’ve found that as people hear the system is working they become even more supportive.”

Vital to the capability of the overall system is the functionality of the monitoring software and Sheil says DVTel is ideal.

“What we were looking for in the control room was simplicity and functionality and DVTel is a proven performer that’s easy to operate and customize,” Sheil says. “Security officers in the main Crown St Mall control room use a joystick to run the PTZs and they’re extremely good at it.

“The officers know half the characters who are perpetrating crimes – and they have great skill with the DVTel system – it’s amazing to watch them working.”

Importantly, the workstations supporting the DVTel monitoring software are part of council’s normal PC hardware – in this case dual core Dell-based workstations.

“At the moment each workstation has 2 monitors and in the next stage of expansion there will be another 2 monitors added to each workstation,” Sheil explains.

The quality of images from the DVTel IP cameras is a real eye-opener. These cameras are excellent, working well when dynamic range is challenged by strong backlight and delivering excellent depth of field. Depth of field is so good that cameras designated to handle facial identification still manage to gather significant detail from activity taking place half a block behind their target area.

Performance is just as good in night-time recordings, with excellent colour rendition and faces clearly recognisable. Part of this strong performance comes down to clever system design incorporating a careful lighting solution but the DVTel cameras still manage to peer out of their designated fields of view to provide a surprising amount of incidental detail.

IP surveillance from DVTel

Wollongong’s video surveillance system is managed and networked using DVTel Latitude Version 5 software supplied by Pacific Communications. Latitude V5 is scaleable enterprise-level multimedia management system that’s ideal for this sort of application.

Features vital to management of larger video surveillance solutions like Wollongong Council include a video matrix switch, a digital video recorder and a digital multiplexer, which combine to allow viewing, recording, analysis and storage of high-quality video and audio. Version 5 of DVTel NVMS brings together network video management, access control, intrusion detection, building automation, geographical mapping and more.

Important for Wollongong Council, Latitude NVMS Version 5 supports various manufacturer's IP cameras and the system also allows for workstations with four monitor outputs, each capable of 25 video tiles and a combination of hyperlinked HTML Maps and Procedures, customised for each operator.

“The biggest user benefit of V5 from an operator’s point of view is the ability to watch playback and live views on the same screen meaning more flexibility and user friendliness,” says Pacific Communications’ senior sales engineer, Paul Gregory. 

“You can view up to 25 images per monitor on a quad head workstation and what that means is you can have 100 cameras – many more than you’d need. In Wollongong the upgrade to V5 incorporates expansion of the system including the art gallery, the RTA and the Council Administration Building,” he says.

According to Pacom’s Scott Myles, DVTel’s Latitude NVMS Version 5 also offers significant improvements in functionality.

“Going to DVTel V5 we now have Scene tracker and the potential for analytics,” he says. “Also important when compared to earlier versions of the system is that Pacom and DVTel have complete control over development – this flexibility has allowed customization to suit the Wollongong Council application – it’s a great solution moving forward.”

Myles says one of the most pleasing aspects of the Wollongong system is that it shows while many people say it’s not possible to get high quality out of IP, the opposite is the truth.

“The quality of the images this solution is delivering are exceptional,” he says. “These are straight IP cameras, not megapixel, and at 4CIF they are delivering superb quality image streams with excellent depth of field. Something like this shows just how effective IP can be not just in terms of flexible installation but in terms of performance – the images are exceptional.

Myles says that a strength of the installation is that it’s a green field site.

“There are not too many sites like this one with no existing infrastructure and with access to buried fibre – it’s a perfect location for IP video,” he says.

Myles also points out that while Wollongong Council has provided its own off-the-shelf hardware and delivers significant inhouse support, Pacom is able to offer that support and provide turnkey applications if required.

Also integral to the system’s functionality are DVTel IP cameras, including the Altitude 9840A Pro Series network PTZ domes and the Altitude 9540 network fixed cameras. The PTZ’s offer 4CIF, 23x and 35x zooms, depending on camera location, have wide dynamic range, auto iris, auto focus and backlight compensation, vandal resistance and IP66 weatherproofing. Meanwhile the 9540 fixed camera also delivers 4CIF image streams, has a Pixim chipset, super wide dynamic range, day/night mode, auto white balance, auto gain control and advanced back light compensation.

These 2 cameras, along with the 9523 series fixed cameras just installed in the art gallery, link to the network via RJ-45 ports and incorporate Layer 2 multicasting to support multiple monitoring locations. It’s a combination of features that makes them ideal for Wollongong Council’s application.

“Tony Pollard’s TPE did the installation of termination points and cameras in Crown St Mall – they’re a local company so this was a reference installation for them and they did a very good job,” says Gregory.

“TPE went to the extent of custom designing and building mounts for PTZ cameras in order to get the best possible coverage and the results speak for themselves – it’s an impressive installation.”

Fanning too, is pleased with the camera choice. He says that as part of the planning process the team involved looked at a large number of cameras and assessed their footage day and night in order to pick the best cameras for their applications.

“Our security had major input into the camera selection – once they understood the general principles of identification and incident cameras they knew exactly what features they needed to catch criminals and they knew where they wanted those cameras to be,” Fanning says.

“I have to say that our security officers and Special Constables have been instrumental in the system’s overall success – they work well above and beyond the call of duty.”

Fanning says that in hindsight he is very happy council went full IP.

“The quality of images is exceptional. We’ve improved the lighting in a few spots but the general performance is great – we got all the flexibility we hoped for with IP and we have made no compromise on quality.”

Benefits of the system

Fanning says the decision to go IP was a long process in which he read everything on the subject he could lay his hands on. There was also market research done locally and on the national level looking at the effectiveness and potential impact of public CCTV systems. He also put a lot of work into their Code of Practice and Standard Operating Procedures for the system.

“During this research it came clear that the subsequent effectiveness of the cameras in solving and deterring crime means the area is safer – that’s important for visitors and shoppers to the mall and city centre,” Fanning says.

“Effective video surveillance is a process and it’s working in Wollongong,” he explains. “As criminal elements in the community become aware of the system their behaviours change. It assists us, council, NSW Police, the RTA, Art Gallery, Illawarra Performing Arts Centre and the community – it’s great for everyone. Success has taken a lot of work and time for many people but in the long term it’s paying off.”

Fanning says the original mall system was funded by council, but the broader Wollongong city centre system in the process of being rolled out is being funded through a grant from the Australian Government as part of the National Community Crime Prevention Program.

Getting this funding was by no means guaranteed but Fanning pursued it relentlessly. Along with his other qualifications, Fanning is accredited as a performance coach in leadership behaviours. That explains his success in engaging various government bureaucracies in the process of rolling out the system.

“It is a partnership approach, based on the original system, the security being funded by Wollongong City Centre Ltd and the grant from the Australian Government. I applied for the grant and received support from the then Lord Mayor and CEO of the Council, along with the NSW Police Local Area Commander and the local Senator.

“In reality though, I don’t think anyone ever really thought it would be granted, but we never gave up, and they were very pleased we got it. We ended up being awarded $485,000 to expand the system which is the largest grant of its type ever given in this Australian program,” Fanning says.

“I don’t know whether it’s been luck or good management but we’ve just had really good success and support all the way through the project. We’ve had excellent co-operation from the RTA. We have full co-operation from Council, NSW Police and now private businesses are getting involved. It’s really been a partnership approach, everyone has helped each other.”

Fanning says the system will become even more effective once stage 2 is completed.

“We have stage 1 finished and stage 2 is about to be rolled out,” he says. “As part of stage 2 we’re aiming to have a PTZ on every pub and nightclub in Wollongong City Centre, with our security officers, Special Constables and police having accessing to these new cameras 24 hours a day.”

Meanwhile Fanning says the support of Sheil and Pacom were vital to the success of the installation.

“Hugh and the team from Pacific Communications believed in the concept of IP video and they worked to give us what we wanted rather than trying to convince us to install something they had,” Fanning explains.

“It’s clear to me that the backup, support and knowledge we got from Pacom and Hugh were the best I’ve seen for ages. They take ownership of the system, are excited about its capabilities and that to me is very important. And they uphold values of honesty and integrity and you can tell they love what they do. 

“We also have had great support from TPE the local company who did the installation in the mall – they have been outstanding,” Fanning says. “Tony Pollard and his company TPE take pride in what they do.

“From memory in 18 months of operation there’s only been one instance of network failure other than power and that was when a rat got into a conduit and chewed through a fibre.

Drawing on his experience, Fanning says any council doing trenching, refurbishments or paving should run conduits for fibre. He says they shouldn’t just plan for today, but what conduit infrastructure can be used for in the future.

“Those fibres can be used for everything and anything – once fibre’s in, the infrastructure is there and can be used for automatic parking signage, PA systems, pop-up bollards, CCTV – whatever.”

“I’m very happy with the IP CCTV system – it’s great – we’ve been really fortunate to get a good system in.” Fanning says. “If we’d gone analogue we’d have been dreadfully disappointed. There’s no doubt we’ll have one of the most comprehensive public surveillance systems using the latest technology in Australia when Stage 2 of this system is completed.