Local Police Officers are regular visitors to the control room in search of information to help with their investigations. Last year Bromley Council had more than 700 visits to the control room to view and take evidential footage. On average 30 pieces of evidence are taken by police or enforcement officers every month.

The London Borough of Bromley has one of the lowest crime rates in London making it one of the safest places in the capital to live and work. The new CCTV system is the latest major initiative in the Safer Bromley Partnership’s bid to curb crime and antisocial behavior.

Executive Councillor for Public Protection and Safety, and Chairman of the Safer Bromley Partnership, Cllr. George Taylor, said:

“We are proud to have such an up-to-date CCTV facility here in Bromley. As a key member of the Safer Bromley Partnership, the Council is determined to work with partners such as the local Police to ensure that Bromley is a safe place to be. As the Chairman of the Partnership, I will not rest until we have done everything we can to crack down on crime and antisocial behavior in the borough. The upgraded CCTV control room is another addition to our armoury against the kind of activities that can make people’s lives a misery.”

From left to right:
Chief Superintendent Martin Greenslade
(Bromley Borough Commander, Metropolitan Police)

Councillor George Taylor
(Portfolio Holder Adult & Community Services)

Terry Rich
(Director of Adult & Community Services)

JMT Systems were the Consultants appointed with remit to produce a specification for the renewal of the Bromley CCTV command & control system and the addition of a new Digital Video Recording System (DVRS). The main challenges set by the specification included amalgamation of the three car park systems over IP, the integration of the new DVR system and the incorporation of existing PTZ cameras from various manufacturers. JMT Systems were quick to recognise the advantages of a Hybrid design by stating the new control system shall provide a versatile platform for operations and development for both analogue and digital video technology.

Mr Terry Hoyle, JMT System’s principle engineer for the project had this to say, “In choosing which CCTV command/control and recording equipment to use for the London Borough of Bromley's 2006 renewal and upgrade programme, JMT System's main concern was to obtain equipment that we were confident would form the core of a system that could have a prolonged cost-efficient life through the rapidly changing technology environment we are currently experiencing. In addition we needed to see that there was a demonstrable willingness of the CCTV matrix manufacturer and the DVR system supplier to work closely together; their agreement to guarantee a solid commitment for long-term system support was also important to us.

Meyertech and Vigilant Technology met all those criteria and, with the two companies sharing information and co-operating to develop the most robust interface code for their different systems, the result was a trouble free installation, and a combined working solution that proved to be very easy to use; this was borne out by the almost immediate acceptance by control room staff of what to them was a very major change from what they were used to.

This close co-operation has given Bromley’s operating teams major advantages in day to day work. For example, if an operator sees something of concern they can immediately review it at the click of the mouse without having to use a separate keyboard or review suite. They can do this immediately, or several hours or even days later. This is facilitated because the Meyertech control system ‘talks’ to the Vigilant DVR solution that records each control position’s active monitor in real time.

Both we, as the consultants, and the client are very pleased with the outcome, not only for its technological attributes but also because the whole scheme came-in within budget, on-time and with an absolute minimum interruption of the valuable service Bromley provides to the safety and comfort of its public”.

Meyertech was able to provide a ‘fully-compliant’ Hybrid solution to meet the JMT specification through its ZoneVu CCTV Integrated Hardware and FUSION CCTV Management Software.

ZoneVu which provides the command & control functionality at hardware level and also operator control of the entire system from a CCTV keyboard environment.

FUSION workstations provide a higher level of functionality over the CCTV keyboard via a Graphical User Interface (GUI) PC Windows XP based platform. Vigilant Technologies was partnered for this project to provide a fully integrated DVR solution.

ZoneVu Equipment

	A ZoneVu Series 3 video matrix was employed to cater for the 160 plus existing analogue cameras in the system. The compactness of the Series 3 also allowed the client to ‘re-claim’ a significant amount of its control room floor space and its environmentally friendly design has significantly reduced power requirements.
	Meyertech’s ZVP-VDA-321-4, Video distribution amplifier’s (32 channels of 1 in 4 out) specifically developed for use with the Series 3, were employed to distribute incoming camera signals to the various control room systems.
	Three Bromley car parks connect back to the control room via dedicated high-speed LAN’s where the IP streams are processed by three ZSI-450-IP modules before their analogue outputs are presented to the Series 3.
	Integration of disparate PTZ cameras was the responsibility of the ZVS-MSI-48 which incorporates a comprehensive library of drivers to control 3rd party telemetry receivers.
	The control system data is managed by a ZSC-1000 plus and supported by ZSC-250 gateways providing multi-site management.
	Operator control of the system is realised from six ZVK-77D system keyboards, four of which operating in combination with FUSION workstations and two dedicated to BLE traffic operations.

FUSION Equipment

	In the control room four operator positions are provided with FUSION-WS5 workstations. Each workstation has three TFT 17” LCD screens. The view selected for each screen is interchangeable and includes one active “spot” full-screen view, one optional view screen, which can be used to show single or multiple images as selected by the operator or, alternatively can be used to review DVR images. The third screen is employed for camera selection using the “virtual matrix” facilities that the ZSI-450’s provide, and for graphic (e.g. maps or plans) displays.
	FUSION-EDIT and Mpower make available system editing and configuration capabilities from a management or engineering log-on level.
	All operator workstations and keyboards are fully audited using FUSION-Audit which is capable of producing management reports in Microsoft Office formats.

System schematic

• CCTV was first introduced in Bromley town centre in 1994.
• During the last eleven years the CCTV system has been expanded to cover the town centres of Orpington, Beckenham, Penge and Anerley as well as some residential areas in the Cray’s estate to the east of the borough. A number of car parks were also added to the scheme during this period.
• Operated continuously since 1994 the system was starting to show its age having reached its capacity in terms of being able to add anything new to the system. Reliability was becoming an issue and it was clear that a major update was required to the old system.
• The Council’s CCTV Consultants, JMT Systems, who also designed the original CCTV system for the Borough, provided a new specification for a 21st Century Command and Control system.
• The successful completion of the system upgrade and revamping of the control room has provided the Borough with an up to date, reliable and expandable system capable of dealing with any new technology for the next ten years.
• The system was designed by JMT Systems, CCTV Technical Consultants.
• The system was installed by Television Installation Services (Mansfield) Ltd.
• Meyertech supplied and commissioned the CCTV command and control system using its ZoneVu Integrated Hardware and FUSION Management Software.
• Vigilant Technology supplied the DVR system.

CCTV Manager John Dell

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