Hikvision mobile surveillance solution deployed on 3,600 buses in Ningbo, China

(02/09/2010)

The Ningbo City Bus mobile surveillance project, one of the largest transportation installations in China, covers more than 3,600 buses belonging to 14 transportation companies in Ningbo city.

The Ningbo Transportation Department faced many of the common problems with security on their buses. They needed to protect their assets and provide for the safety and security of passengers and drivers. Their security system needed to provide evidence in the event of theft or injury, help to settle disputes between passengers and staff.

The surveillance system had to support high quality video playback and store video data going back 2 weeks. Anti-shock technology would be adopted as well to ensure normal function of the mobile surveillance system when the bus is in motion. Hikvision created a high-quality mobile solution which consisted of the DS-8004HMF-B mobile DVR, the DS-1002HM-S mobile DVR backup device and the DS-2CC512P color dome camera to meet these requirements.

In this mobile surveillance system, four Hikvision cameras were installed separately in the windshield, carriage, front door and exit of each bus providing surveillance coverage of more than 90% of the bus.

The camera installed in the windshield mainly monitors whether the drivers go through a red light which would easily lead to traffic accidents. The camera fixed above the driver mainly monitors whether passengers enter the bus without tickets. The camera in the middle of the bus monitors the security status (theft or dispute) throughout the bus and the camera at exit keeps an eye on the behaviour of passengers going off the bus.

This system creates a strong deterrent effect on criminals as well as unruly passengers, effectively ensuring the safety of the drivers, passengers and their property. In addition, if there are complaints about drivers from the passengers, or dispute between passengers, the related video footage can be retrieved and viewed for reference.

Different from mobile surveillance systems in other cities, the Ningbo City Bus surveillance system has an obvious superiority in delivering a high-quality video stream. Using the H.264 video codec, the Hikvision DS-8004HMF-B mobile DVR supports real-time viewing and playback with the resolution of up to 4CIF. Moreover, the DS-2CC512P color dome camera delivers horizontal resolution of 480 TVL (752x582), and it also features color and B/W auto switch, ensuring high image quality for 24/7 monitoring.

Hikvision’s mobile DVR also features anti-shock technology for reliable performance. It can effectively avoid the damage to hard disk drives, as well as making the surveillance system function normally when the bus is running. The GPS module embedded in the mobile DVR can help the security staff to locate the bus via e-map on the client software and take quick action should an emergency happen.

“As more than 3,600 buses are equipped with surveillance products, it’s unrealistic to pay attention to the on-site status of each bus simultaneously,” said Chongguan Jin, vice director of scientific and information department in Ningbo city public transportation head office. “In addition, the real-time video transmission means higher cost. So we chose to store the video data locally for playback and retrieving instead of real-time monitoring in this project at moment.”

To realize high-capability local storage, the Ningbo transportation department chose the hard disk drives with the capability of up to 750GB each, which can store video data at least 15 days. The Hikvision DS-1002HMI-S mobile DVR back up device was also used in this project for video data backup. With e-SATA interface, the DS-1002HMI-S can be connected to the mobile DVR for high-speed video data backup in any specified time frame.

Though this project didn’t utilize real-time monitoring, the transportation department knows it may decide to upgrade that system at a future time. For this reason the reserved network interfaces in the system will allow for wireless network video transmission to deliver real-time video/audio and alerting signals to the monitoring centers if required. As well, other interfaces are also set up on the mobile DVRs for people counting, GPS positioning and more for easy expansion.

“To date, this project has covered most of the public bus routes in Ningbo City,” said Jin. “After evaluation of the products’ utility, stability and reliability by actual use, Hikvision’s products have proven to be superior to the surveillance products that have been used in the buses of other cities in China.”

The general manger of Ningbo city public transportation head office, Dezhi Zhu said: "The video monitoring system created by Hikvision has obviously improved the security level of Ningbo bus transportation routes and dramatically decreased the rate of crime or illegal action on our buses. The safety of passengers and their property was ensured, and the service quality of transportation companies also has had a positive change accordingly."

“As mobile surveillance is becoming more critical and transportation departments begin to depend on surveillance system to detect crime, there is an increasing demand for high performance mobile surveillance products and solutions,” said Polo Cai, Vice President of Hikvision. “In addition to the city buses in Ningbo, our mobile surveillance solutions have also been used in many transportation projects in other major domestic cities, and we expect our products and solutions to be applied more in transportation projects worldwide.”

Related topics:  CCTV cameras and domes   CCTV recording, DVR, VCR, Multiplexers   CCTV system and accessories   Surveillance 

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