History Protects Itself
IP surveillance helps safeguard Ohio city, portable cameras help crowd control
- By Fredrik Wallberg
- Oct 01, 2009
Native Americans -- including Hopewell, Adenas, Delaware, Shawnee
and Wyandot -- were the first inhabitants of the countryside that was
to become Dublin, Ohio. It was originally part of 2,000 acres of land
given to Lt. James Holt by the government as payment for service
in the Revolutionary War. After several real estate transactions, John
Sells purchased 400 acres of land in the early 1800s. This area
became a village in 1810 that would later develop into one of the
most progressive communities in central Ohio.
Today, the site of Sells’ original purchase is known as Historic
Dublin. Through well-managed growth, Dublin has preserved
its historic past, while enriching the quality of life in the
community. Early 19th century architecture and dry limestone
fences bordering its roads add to Historic Dublin’s heritage.
Many of its original buildings are listed in the National Register
of Historical Places.
In the 1970s, Dublin was transformed from a rural village into
a suburban business center, due largely to the completion of the
outer belt highway and development of the Muirfield Village Golf
Club and residential community. The quality of Dublin’s commercial
construction was established early with the development
of Metro Center, the headquarters of Ashland Chemical Co. and
the Midwestern Volkswagen complex. With rapid business and
residential growth, Dublin officially became a city in 1987.
A Well-Rounded Solution
The Dublin Division of Police is committed to working with
residents and businesses to improve the quality of life in the city.
Numerous community-based programs and services are available,
designed to ensure safety and protection to citizens. Remote cameras
are used for crowd monitoring, as Dublin is the host to many
large events that create an influx of people. The PGA’s annual
Memorial Golf tournament features the tour’s top field and is a
huge draw for the city.
Dublin’s previous solution to crowd and parking lot monitoring
was dedicated police officers patrolling on motorbikes all
day, but they realized that police officers could be used in more
efficient ways.
“We are thrilled with the Milestone product and managing
everything on the back end,” said Jay Somerville, technical services
bureau director. “It is so easy to navigate and use, and it
does not require an advanced knowledge of a specific application.
The police are coming to me asking for more of the same -- that’s
how I know they are using it.”
The city installed Axis wireless cameras for monitoring at the
central station. They found the ability to send a URL to the police
force with a live feed of an incident to be extremely efficient.
“We are known in Dublin for innovative thinking and leveraging
technology to better the city,” Somerville said. “Milestone
and Northwestern are a perfect match for the entire solution. The
Axis cameras have been great, as well; the network mapping and
wireless feature allows us to use these cameras portably.”
The city has a population of 39,200, and on any given day it
can balloon to more than 70,000.
Besides the golf tournament, the city is home to many large
corporate headquarters, such as Wendy’s, and large events, such
as the Irish Festival.
With a unique and flexible solution for the city, Somerville explains
that it was less expensive to install an IP camera system as
opposed to forklift upgrading the existing analog system.
“It’s amazing; I saved a significant amount of money because
the system ties in all on one common platform running on an IT
infrastructure,” Somerville said.
He went on to say that management from the Justice Center,
the Police Department and other public facilities all concluded
that the open-platform format was the most cost-effective and
future-proof solution the city could go with.
“With Milestone, we knew we could build on what we had and
we would not have to rip out the entire proprietary solution that
was already in place,” Somerville said.
Advanced Functionality
The police and other city officials all have access to the Milestone
client interface. This has made sharing information more streamlined
and efficient.
“Milestone is so flexible,” Somerville said. “The fact that all
my employees can access Milestone’s client and put in an IP address
to mix and match cameras is great. The operation cost is
less because the training is less on my side. Sixty-one police and
17 dispatch personal are using it currently.
“Milestone cannot make the system any easier -- we just hyperlinked
the HTML version to the live feed, and they love the
Windows GUI.”
Technical manager John Kostelac of Northwestern Ohio Security
Systems, which helped implement the new solution, explained
that the remote access has been a key feature for the city.
“It can only be described as seamless,” Kostelac said. “In fact,
users at the remote locations do not even realize that the servers
are on location.”
Kostelac said the PTZ cameras by Axis did what they
wanted them to do -- that is, record all the time and archive on
motion. He goes on to explain that Milestone was a good fit
based on the open platform, ease of use and ability to scale to
unlimited devices.
What’s Next?
Currently Dublin has 31 cameras at the Dublin Recreation Center
and 29 cameras at the Dublin Police Department. The plan
is to convert the rest of the city buildings over the course of the
next two years. In the next phase, they are looking to add access
control from S2 Corp. They also are looking to deploy fixed incident
cameras as traffic cameras, in which feeds can be sent to the
local news stations.
The installation with Milestone and Axis has been such a success
that the school district also is looking at implementing the
same solution at key points.
This article originally appeared in the October 2009 issue of Network-Centric Security.
About the Author
Fredrik Walberg is
the marketing program
manager of
the Americas for
Milestone Systems.