National Digital Policing – CCTV Hub
British Transport Police CCTV Hub
Customer: Network Rail
CLIENT BRIEF
Following the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005, British Transport Police (BTP) established their CCTV capabilities required improvements, especially in the following key areas:
- Coordination of activities across the national rail CCTV network
- Mass digital downloads
- Review, collection, and transfer of digital evidence.
Sarax were given a remit framed around “Build me a CCTV hub”. From this acorn grew a revolutionary programme of improvements.
WHAT WE DID
Sarax delivered a 9-year (2007-2016) integration project, implementing 30 separate system integrations, delivering over 85,000 live cameras and video playback and mass download capability. Presented across 12 sites in total, this included 5 police control rooms, 6 police forensic suites, playback capability at 2 custody sites and live capability at 2 other stakeholder sites.
A truly transformational change was delivered by Sarax, including the building of a CCTV site with integrated facilities, technology, processes, training, maintenance support and management structures.
HOW WE DID IT
Sarax identified the benefits of works through a feasibility and business process review. From this Sarax obtained £20m of funding on behalf of BTP.
Sarax then designed and delivered the procurement for turnkey services including wide area networks, the refurbishment of control rooms and forensic CCTV labs and site power upgrades. The upskilling and knowledge transfer to existing staff was a cornerstone of the programme, which included new business processes, training and maintenance. The full programme management delivered by Sarax incorporated all aspects of the works implementation, design, and financial signoff.
THE WORKS
The solution required implementation of diverse network capabilities to CCTV systems, with infrastructure to cater for legacy systems requiring bespoke hardware and software integrations into an ‘off the shelf’ platform such that a common user interface could be used by BTP, regardless of the source of the images.
A phased delivery approach was adopted so that each new element introduced was appropriately tested and commissioned before moving forward.
Sarax worked with external stakeholders including Train Operating Companies, Network Rail, Transport for London, London Underground, and the Metropolitan Police Service up to and including executive level – as well as equipment, software, system and network providers.
TOP 5 BENEFITS
- Enhancing the protection of the national railway infrastructure
- A single user interface for multiple source systems
- A single digital solution and forensic process for the storage of digital media and presentation of video evidence
- Improved decision-making capability, reducing train delays and improving services
- Transforming a very localised and fragmented approach into a single management structure enabling BTP to become more influential over new schemes and scheme changes.
VALUE ADD
- Owned the client’s vision from start to finish
- Uncovered best practice and delivered a solution that was immediately easy to use and successful
- Owned and resolved the problems of legacy system owners – including identifying and gaining funding and proposing and gaining approval for technical changes to their networks.