WSi News2015-04-15 07:01:05
Douglas Borough Council (DBC) in the Isle of Man to develop an innovative concept of delivering CCTV as a service to public sector users, such as schools, car parks, libraries, and the police.
The revenue generated by this service will ultimately
not only cover the cost of providing the packages, but also the Council's own costs in providing island-wide CCTV coverage for shopping streets and other public areas.
Innovative business model
Using CCTV in public areas, although not considered acceptable in all countries, is commonplace in the Isle of Man and the United Kingdom. The CCTV-as-a-service project, supported by the Council's Leader Councillor David Christian MBE and Borough Engineer Ian Clague MBE, was driven by Daniel Looney, Head of ICT for Douglas Borough Council, who was tasked with providing reliable CCTV coverage for the busy streets of Douglas town centre. He knew that, once the control room was set up, the facilities could be extended to other public sector users on the island. This would have the twin benefits of generating an income for DBC to cover
its own CCTV operating costs, and allowing CCTV services to be provided to the other users at a far lower cost than if they had to install standalone systems.
When Daniel Looney approached Aidan O'Reilly of Eye-Spy Security, a local expert in CCTV system design and installation, to discuss his idea, the company quickly
realized that to make it a reality, two key requirements would need to be satisfied: the CCTV equipment used would have to be very versatile as it would need to work
with existing cameras of various types, and it would also have to be easily scalable, so that its capacity could be expanded easily and cost effectively as the number of
users grew.
The CCTV systems supplied by Security Products (SP), a segment of the Building Technologies Division from Siemens
The revenue generated by this service will ultimately
not only cover the cost of providing the packages, but also the Council's own costs in providing island-wide CCTV coverage for shopping streets and other public areas.
Innovative business model
Using CCTV in public areas, although not considered acceptable in all countries, is commonplace in the Isle of Man and the United Kingdom. The CCTV-as-a-service project, supported by the Council's Leader Councillor David Christian MBE and Borough Engineer Ian Clague MBE, was driven by Daniel Looney, Head of ICT for Douglas Borough Council, who was tasked with providing reliable CCTV coverage for the busy streets of Douglas town centre. He knew that, once the control room was set up, the facilities could be extended to other public sector users on the island. This would have the twin benefits of generating an income for DBC to cover
its own CCTV operating costs, and allowing CCTV services to be provided to the other users at a far lower cost than if they had to install standalone systems.
When Daniel Looney approached Aidan O'Reilly of Eye-Spy Security, a local expert in CCTV system design and installation, to discuss his idea, the company quickly
realized that to make it a reality, two key requirements would need to be satisfied: the CCTV equipment used would have to be very versatile as it would need to work
with existing cameras of various types, and it would also have to be easily scalable, so that its capacity could be expanded easily and cost effectively as the number of
users grew.
The CCTV systems supplied by Security Products (SP), a segment of the Building Technologies Division from Siemens
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