Tightest deadline

Upgrading London' s surveillance network will be a massive undertaking on the lead up to 2012.

The Games will be the impetus for extensive future investment not only in sporting venues connected to the event but in far reaching infrastructure projects, housing, roads, hotels, transport links and communications.

But how does an established capital city upgrade its network and prepare itself for an influx of more than double its usual population, whilst ensuring security at a time of international alert and continue with 'business as usual' for its residents?

This will be the challenge faced by London … and this was the challenge facing Athens in the run up to the 2004 Olympic Games.

Urban sprawl

The City of Athens is one of the largest in Europe. Although it has a population of only three million, it spreads out further than most other cities on the continent. In fact, its urban sprawl is more on a par with modern Los Angeles than an ancient cradle of civilisation.

Car ownership has increased rapidly in recent years and there has been a concerted effort to increase the quality of the country's highways. This is especially noticeable in Athens, where travel by car, motorbike or bus is essential over such a large area.

However, each year the city's population is doubled, swollen by a huge influx of tourists who add extra congestion to the extensive road network and increase security and surveillance concerns for the city authorities. When Athens was chosen to host the XXVIII Olympiad, the city knew this influx would be massive.

200 cameras installed

In 2003, with Olympic sporting, accommodation and media facilities in the final stages of build, the Athens city authorities embarked on a major programme of improvements to unite the infrastructure. A crucial part of the plan was the upgrade of the inner ring road, which connects some of the city's most important trunk and main roads. To give it the surveillance network it would need to keep the Games moving, and with just 90 days to go, they turned to AMG Systems.

AMG and Gentec CSW, the company's Greek partner and systems integrator, had just three months to install 210 cameras and transmission equipment along the 65km Attiki Odos Highway. AMG also had to lay down all the fibre to connect each of the cameras with two control rooms, one for the Police and another for the Transport Ministry. The twin control rooms would give the system an additional layer of flexibility and resilience and a key part of the brief was network resilience.

Says the company: "From the start, we were under enormous time pressure to succeed. Nevertheless, the goal of a resilient, responsive CCTV system that would be useful to the citizens and city authorities after the Olympics departed had to be met. Also, we were always conscious of the backdrop of a high level of threat, due to the giant global profile of the Games. Therefore, we chose a dual-redundant configuration routed through each of the two control rooms to 'harden' the entire installation."

Flexible and resilient

The final design was built around a dual fibre ring, capable of transmitting live, full-bandwidth video images from any of the cameras to either of the control rooms. AMG's Guardian-Lite 2700 transmission equipment drives this core circuitry with Vision 2900 series units used for some of the individual cameras. Vitally, if one of the fibres is accidentally damaged, the Guardian-Lite equipment automatically routes video and data signals around the other fibre ring to maintain surveillance capability until a repair can be done.

Up to 64 video signals can be carried simultaneously on each fibre using the Guardian -Lite 2700. Although configured as a dual fibre ring in the Athens project, it can also be used in a spur to collect signals from a "daisy chain" of cameras. An added benefit from this technology is the significant saving that was made on the fibre optic infrastructure when compared with traditional methods of video collection.

Proving its worth since 2004

"Despite intense time pressure, this sophisticated design was put into place ready for the start of the Games," says George Kitsios, Managing Director, Gentec CSW. "We handed over a surveillance network second to none and it played a major part in helping to ensure that the massive influx of Olympic traffic stayed mobile. The ability of control room staff to make decisions based on real, live data and to monitor the effectiveness of those decisions should not be underestimated. It is the key to flexible traffic management in urban environments."

Put in place in only 90 days, just in time for the start of the 2004 Olympic Games, the CCTV system has continued to prove its worth since. "The volume of traffic and its concentration in certain, key areas, may have gone down since the Games but normal commuting and freight operations continue unabated," said Kitsios. "Already we have increased the camera count, from 210 to 300, and we are now planning to expand the network with more cameras covering an even greater area."

Impetus to invest

Winning the Olympic Games provided the impetus for Athens to invest in its future.

Housing, hotels, air links, sporting venues and communications – all underwent something of a transformation in the run up to 2004 and are expected to continue to give the residents and future tourists alike a big return on the investment. The Ring Road project was no different – cutting edge technology deployed in record time, making resilient, real time video surveillance a reality.