The Long Beach Transit (LBT) was established in 1963. Its early date of establishment has allowed it to build up an excellent reputation for being committed to the safety of the public and passengers, always being on-time in all of its dealings, as well as the reliability and cleanliness of its fleet. Popular bus operators have also contributed to the success of the company.
LBT has tripled the number of riders without missing a single day of service, over its 40-plus years of existence. LBT was able to uphold its tradition of responsiveness to its riders and the community throughout this long period of time with the continued leadership and guidance of its board of directors.
LBT lately set up GE's mobileView digital recording system all throughout its fleet to comply with its safety goals. The city is capable of further securing its buses and providing instant feedback if an incident should occur, through the use of mobileView which is an on-board wirelessCompensating for Its Cost
Up until now, LBT has successfully set up 162 mobileView throughout its facility. The buses that are currently being monitored are experiencing close to 25 incidents on a daily basis. These random and unexpected incidents range from drivers reporting the dangerous driving of other road users, to car crashes and warning lights coming on the bus, to elderly passengers tripping and falling, to a variety of other unsuspected events.
The system has proven to be extremely successful especially when it comes to exposing false accusations. After a suspicious incident, authorized personnel can quickly gain access to the stored video footage from the bus and verify the party at fault. LBT officials proudly acknowledge the fact that, the system has already paid several times for itself in terms of claims and lawsuits that have been successfully deterred.
LBT officials also expected the
security system to significantly cut down the rates of vandalism and property attacks. This in itself can ultimately save any transit agency a significant amount of expenses that could have gotten spent on repair and cleanup. Past surveillance evidence has gathered from other locations has clearly proved that once the graffiti artists are aware that they are being monitored, they are less likely to carry out an act of vandalism.
LBT officials believe that bus operators are increasingly encouraging their drivers to follow city policies more closely, this have been proven by an incident that occurred recently in which the video system has helped security personnel in apprehending a passenger that had assaulted another passenger on the bus. The number of disciplinary actions and other traffic violations by drivers are also expected to be reduced by the mobileView surveillance system. Not to mention that they also hope to be able to use some of the captured footage to assist in driver training by next year.
The Way it Functions
All the buses are outfitted with a mobileView III DVR that has six surveillance system affixed to it, as well as a wireless Cisco 1310 router. The digital recording system itself can capture from 1 to 30 frames per second, also, depending on the customized settings, the hard drive being capable of storing up to 20 weeks of black and white images or up to 11 weeks of color images. The typical system consists of up to eight security system as well as a keypad, panic button/status lights, DVR docking station and a desktop PC with the mobileView WaveReaderTM software program already installed in it.
The images can be captured, stored locally and then transmitted to a central monitoring station via a wireless transmission that is used in conjunction with the security system. The central monitoring station can then directly access the bus system and request images at any time. Not to mention that surveillance system can also be set up and customized so that the central station automatically begins receiving immediate broadcasts from the vehicle whenever an alarm or trigger is turned on. In order to simplify the retrieval process, Images triggered by impact sensors or by drivers hitting the panic button are saved in a special file format with a time and date stamp. Adding on, these images also are securely protected from automatic overwriting that the machine continuously uses to save storage space.
This is how it functions: let us say that the driver calls in about an incident, the surveillance system will automatically mark the video footage for further inspection. They system marks the video by inserting a marker three minutes ahead of the call and then a second marker five minutes after the handset is put back in place. As soon as the vehicle returns back to the depot, the video footage is transmitted using the wireless security network and saved onto the server area network (SAN) for LBT security personnel to analyze. This wireless transfer process immediately initiates as the bus comes within close range to the wireless network of the depot.
Furthermore, LBT is also using the wireless system to remotely obtain maintenance data from the mobileView surveillance systems. In addition, LBT workers can also request data on how the security system is running for specific buses, dates, and times using a special feature called Clipfind. The information is retrieved instantly and stored onto the SAN as soon as the buses return back to the depot.
In order to guarantee the safety and security of both passenger and surrounding environment, LBT has set up a transit police car that can be used to pursue a bus if any problems take place onboard. These police vehicles are actually equipped with a mobile access point customized and modified by GE's wireless incorporation associate, NextPhase Wireless. This device enables the police car to unnoticeably tap into the bus' mobileView security system and monitors the incidents as they unfold in real time broadcast from a far range.
Let us not forgot to mention that LBT has two main depots, each able of managing close to 230 buses in total. It became crucial for LBT to have the wireless download capability with this huge amount of vehicles. Automatic video upload starts immediately as buses enter the depot's wireless coverage area; this is possible through the last mile access feature. This feature is very beneficial since it gives LBT personnel access to live video footage as the buses approach the station.
Adding on, hands free information retrieval is also allowed by the wireless download capability feature. To make you realize how valuable this feature is let us look back at how this security system used to operate in the past years. This feature did not even exist in previous installations of the system and transit authority employees had to trace each and every bus and physically take out the old hard drive that was filled with the data and then swap it with a fresh empty hard drive. Could you imagine how long it took to complete this process for the entire 230 busses?
A system That is Easy to Operate
The first time that that LBT administrators decided to invest in a digital recording security system for their city's buses, they envisioned a system that was stout, user-friendly and feature-rich, as well as provided high image quality. This was a brand new idea since the city had never used a video recording security system on its buses in the past.
According to the transit agency The mobileView system from GE has already met and exceeded those goals. In fact, they noted, the system was only applied in June of 2005 and has already paid for itself over and over again. This is a reality that many city officials in other locations fail to observe. Any security system will practically cost them nothing after a few years since it prevents many vandalisms, crimes, robberies, and other costly incidents from ever taking place. Not to mention that sometimes it may prevent murder, and obviously nobody can put a price on human life. And even if a terrible incident does occur, the perpetrators will not be able to escape easily. The security system will have instantly recorded their every action and captured their true identities. This then makes it very easy for the police and other authorized security officials to locate them and prosecute them in a court of law. This prevents them from committing further crimes that might not only be dangerous for the community but also for the security officials who have to track them down and also from potentially harming themselves. Thanks to the rapidly developing security industry all this pain and suffering will be eliminated.
