Reaping New Efficiencies With Analytics
As organizations install more and more security cameras, how can all that video data be better utilized? Learn how video analytics is being leveraged across a range of markets to increase security, improve public safety, reduce shrink and power business intelligence applications.
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Market Opportunity Overview
Video analytics are being used for a range of applications, such as increasing security, improving public safety, reducing shrink and providing operational intelligence across several vertical markets. Perhaps the latest use of video analytics is to create business intelligence applications for nonsurveillance purposes that drive operational efficiencies within the customer’s infrastructure.
Let’s take a closer look at some of the market niches where video analytics is being utilized to increase security and realize newfound business efficiencies:
Commercial/Retail — Shoplifting, fraud and inventory shrink have a significant effect on the profits of retailers each year. With the combination of video analytics and VMS in a single platform, retailers are better able to prevent and recover lost items, creating a measureable ROI. Using intelligent video analytics designed for specific retail environments, retailers can be alerted to suspicious shopping behaviors and in-store/after-hours motion detection.
The safety and security of both employees and customers is of critical importance to management and is a significant factor in terms of liability and insurance. Retailers need a means to be alerted to potential safety threats without putting staff in danger. Likewise, retailers need access to advanced search tools for reviewing recorded video with an increased focus on investigative purposes. Intelligent software can provide users with the ability to specify the type of activity they would like to search for, set the time parameters and then be shown only relevant data. This reduces the risk of user error and saves hours of individual search time, resulting in a reduction of overall labor costs.
Retailers also require access to business intelligence to retrieve additional data about their business performance and ways to improve the customer experience. For example, a retailer using people counting could track the bi-directional flow of customers as they pass through user-definable lines, such as entrances and exits, to determine staffing needs.
Traffic flow patterns can also be measured by aisle, merchandise display or other areas, to identify peak busy periods or alert staff when customers are at the register. These new performance measures can help retailers enhance store layout, signage, product organization and reduce customer service wait times.
Educational institutions — VMS can be used to enable immediate notification when suspicious events occur, enabling rapid response for campus security, staff and other first responders. In response to set alarm activity, the software can control pan/tilt/zoom (p/t/z) cameras to record an alarming object, send alarm images to wireless mobile devices or E-mail addresses, lock doors, close gates or turn on
lights.
Applications can identify potentially troublesome events such as movement in alarm zones, perimeter breaches during off-hours, loitering and suspicious bags or objects left behind without putting school staff at undue risk during the monitoring process. Additionally, security personnel can be alerted to events that may compromise emergency procedures, such as objects blocking emergency exits.
Vandalism and property damage are a common concern for schools. Utilizing analytics, video management solutions can not only provide the tools to identify suspicious events in real-time, but also to quickly pinpoint events or people from archived video data.
Transportation — Transit organizations are looking for ways to improve security and public safety, while also increasing ridership. Safety and security threats in high density transportation settings include everything from vandalism and violence, accidental as well as staged injuries, to bombs and other terrorist activities.
Video analytics and VMS can provide necessary means of comprehensive investigation to efficiently respond to these multifaceted safety, security and liability risks. Transportation organizations can be alerted in real-time to such instances as people moving in the wrong direction, obstructions blocking emergency exits, and suspicious objects left behind on road, rail, transit platforms or other high risk areas.
Consider the benefits of using video analytics vs. simple motion detection. For example, imagine a camera on an outdoor train platform. Pixel changes will be caused by movement of people on the platform and trains on the tracks, as well as wind, rain, shadows and light reflections. Video motion detection will provide alerts on all pixel changes, creating an unmanageable number of false alarms while presenting a high likelihood that an event of interest — a person crossing the train tracks — would be missed by monitoring personnel.
Health care — Patient-care facilities, pharmaceutical plants, medicinal storage rooms, R&D labs and other health-care areas are made more secure with the deployment of video analytics and VMS. These facilities can benefit from real-time notifications sent to roving security personnel who don’t have to be tied down to control room video screens. As a result, health-care end users can expect the following advantages:
- Decreased theft and other security threats
- To be alerted to unauthorized removal of equipment
- Automatic actions, such as locked down doors or turned on lights from triggered events
- Reduced liability and insurance
- To be alerted to people entering restricted zones
These are but a few of the environments that can benefit from the deployment of intelligent video analytics. Importantly, before any solution decisions are made, systems integrators should work with customers to determine their current and future needs. Only then can a lifecycle solution be designed to achieve the greatest amount of efficiencies for the customer, while keeping the integrator engaged in a trusted advisory capacity.
Marc Holtenhoff is CEO of Ontario, Canada-based Aimetis Corp., a provider of video surveillance software solutions. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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