The upcoming Hyderabad metro rail will be one of the first projects in the country to have an Internet Protocol based surveillance mechanism whereby any camera can be accessed at any point of time, revealed Capt. Ravinder Reddy, from L&T Metro Rail Hyderabad (L&TMRH), the concessionaire building the system, here on Friday.
Mr. Reddy, who was part of a panel discussion on ‘Security and Surveillance Challenges in Smart Cities’ here at an event held by the Fire Safety Association (FSAI), mentioned that the Hyderabad metro rail will be opting for IP surveillance from the inception stage, unlike other metro rail systems.
Unlike an analogue system where each camera is attached to a specific server, in IP based surveillance, the security is enhanced because multiple images can be obtained simultaneously.
Citing reasons to opt for it, he said, “An operator cannot look for more than 20 minutes. After that, he will be distracted and not alert, which may result in disasters.”
“In the US, the response time for emergencies is three minutes when you dial 911. We are still in hours here, and we have to come down to single digits,” Mr. Reddy said.
Rizwan Ali, Global Security Programme Manager, Microsoft, said that his company had decided to integrate and move away from monitoring to trigger based security in 2008.
“Today, it works very well. There had been a fire in Bangkok and we managed it by calling the police from here,” he recalled, and added that in times of need, they were able to ensure the safety of the company’s employees with the help of technology. “People residing in colonies do not even know how to use fire safety equipment. They call security to operate it. People must know what is there,” said E. Ananth, senior design architect, Genesis, who was also part of the discussion.
Commodore Pakala, managing partner, Defence Experts, also pointed out that there was need to have a regulatory authority in any smart city.
“It must be a regulatory authority with impeccable integrity to check all standards,” said Commodore Pakala, and added that a responsible and knowledgeable agency is needed in a smart city.
In the U.S., the response time for emergencies is three minutes when you dial 911. We are still in hours here, and we have to come down to single digits
Capt. Ravinder Reddy
