The Flemish Government has chosen AEOS access control by Nedap to secure its sites across Belgium and other European countries. A 6-year framework contract was awarded to Nedap channel partner G4S. This will involve G4S replacing the technology for more than 4,000 doors with AEOS.

The new AEOS system will accommodate up to 50 software users and will feature various integrations, including visitor management, automatic number plate recognition, mobile readers and QR code readers.

The Flemish Government was looking for an open system that provides the freedom to select which technology it integrates and which installers it works with.

Standardisation across Europe

The Government also wants to streamline its systems and processes. It currently has a wide mix of access control systems at its premises in various locations and wants to introduce more standardisation through AEOS.

As a large firm with teams of project managers, technicians, programmers and more, G4S has the capability to handle such a big, multi-faceted project. And to provide the great-quality, responsive service and scalability the Flemish Government is looking for.

Tom van de Moer at the Flemish Government says: “We’re looking forward to working with G4S and Nedap on this project. The detailed conversations they conducted during the tender process reassured us that we’ll receive a high-quality system and service. AEOS has the flexibility to adapt to our needs at each location, however intricate the demands, while standardising our processes nationally and internationally.”

Thomas Quante will take over as President of the Bosch Building Technologies division on June 1, 2021. As a board member for the division, he was previously responsible for the international system integrator business as well as for the fire alarm systems business within the global product business.

Quante succeeds Dr. Tanja Rückert, who will become Chief Digital Officer of the Bosch Group on July 1, 2021.

“In the field of safety, security and building technology, we are operating in a very exciting and dynamic market environment. Due to the growing integration of artificial intelligence and the Internet of Things, we see enormous potential for innovative AIoT solutions and intelligent services that provide even more energy efficiency, comfort, security and safety for our customers. I am very pleased to be playing a key role in shaping this development,” explains Thomas Quante.

Quante, who has a degree in business administration, began his career in 1994 at Robert Bosch GmbH and has worked as an executive with strategic and operational responsibilities in various Bosch divisions in Germany and abroad.

Quante has broad experience in the B2B sector as well as in-depth market and customer knowledge in building and security & safety technology. Joining Bosch Building Technologies in 2012, Quante initially headed the international business for professional communication and audio systems based in Burnsville, USA. In 2015, he became a member of the board for Bosch Building Technologies, where he played a key role in establishing and successfully developing the international system integrator business.

HID Global, a worldwide leader in trusted identity solutions, has delivered a redesigned ePassport booklet and document issuance software to Estonia’s Police and Border Guard Board (PPA ). The European country, known worldwide as a pioneer of electronic identity and services, recently issued the new passport booklet, making it possible for citizens renewing their travel documents to receive the new ePassport.

“HID is proud to meet the rigorous quality and technical ePassport specifications required by the government of Estonia, which is widely renowned for providing high-caliber electronic identity documents and services to its citizens,” said Craig Sandness, Senior Vice President and Head of Secure Issuance and Citizen ID Solutions. “The new booklets and supporting software solution simultaneously enhance the country’s ePassport document with industry-leading security features, while capturing the essence of Estonia’s national identity.”

Document holders benefit from various forward-looking features included in Estonia’s unique and improved ePassport. The document’s polycarbonate datapage incorporates optically variable inks, two laser images and a window in the shape of Estonia for strong protection against fraud. Additional visual components that reflect the country’s identity include visa pages that showcase six native animals found in Estonia’s natural habitats and UV and embossed features that depict the local climate.

“Estonia took a significant step forward with the new passport project, introducing the identity document which binds the history, present and future of Estonia as a cohesive design and tells the story of Estonia in the world,” said Eliisa Sau, chief expert of the PPA Identity and Status Bureau. “With the project not only was the design changed, but the first ever polycarbonate datapage was introduced together with new technology and semi-automated personalisation process.”

HID’s personalization and quality assurance software modules seamlessly integrate into Estonia’s existing issuance system and enable polycarbonate datapage personalization, secure chip encoding, encryption, and help ensure the condition of the ePassports. For additional security, the PPA is able to track each booklet from the manufacturing facility to the conclusion of the personalization process with HID’s inventory software module.

The Estonian government issues seven types of travel documents to citizens that are valid for up to 10 years.

June 8th, 2021 – In today’s crowded cities, effective traffic management is critical for reducing congestion and preventing accidents. With the Hikvision Traffic Visualization Dashboard, traffic managers can view historical and real-time traffic information, helping them make the best decisions and improve outcomes for road users and residents.

The growing traffic management challenge
Cities around the world are experiencing major traffic management challenges related to congestion, air pollution, slow journey times, and increased road accidents. With 68% of people expected to live in cities by 2050 (compared to 55% today), and tough demands for sustainability and lower emissions, the challenges are set to increase exponentially.

In an attempt to keep traffic flowing and to maximize road safety, many cities are investing in roadside infrastructure to monitor traffic conditions – including cameras and sensors at key junctions. However, with no way to convert vast quantities of traffic data into actionable insights, this kind of infrastructure can rarely support effective strategic and real-time traffic responses.

Converting traffic data into actionable insights

To help authorities overcome their immediate and longer-term traffic management challenges, Hikvision has created the Traffic Visualization Dashboard. This integrates data from roadside cameras and sensors, and displays it to traffic management teams via an immersive, map-based interface.

With options to overlay historical and real-time traffic data on either a 2D or 3D map, it gives traffic managers fast, easy access to the information they need. The dashboard can also be customized quickly and easily, allowing teams to focus on the traffic information that is most important to them – from vehicle counting and congestion information, to traffic incidents and violations – such as drivers who break the speed limit, drive without their seat belts fastened, or run red lights.

Key benefits of the Traffic Visualization Dashboard
Optimized traffic management decisions

The Hikvision solution combines historical and real-time traffic data to help managers understand key traffic trends, helping them to make better planning decisions. In particular, the Traffic Visualization Dashboard can support better decisions on which kinds of traffic management policies and solutions to implement, from signal optimization, to access management solutions and congestion charging schemes.

By helping traffic managers to make better long-term planning decisions, the Traffic Visualization Dashboard can help to tackle traffic issues such as traffic congestion and other negative impacts of excessive traffic.

Photo caption: 3D map-based dashboard showcasing traffic violation and traffic congestion insights

Real-time incident responses and improved traffic violation management

As well as helping to inform long-term traffic planning, the solution helps teams to identify and respond to traffic incidents and violations in near-real-time. This helps to keep key corridors on the road network as clear as possible, helping to speed up journey times for road users.

Photo caption: 3D map-based dashboard showcasing intersection statistics

Actionable traffic insights ‘at a glance’

The solution provides 2D and 3D map options that model junctions and traffic corridors accurately, and to scale. The map-based interface provides a fully immersive experience that allows traffic and incident managers to quickly spot congestion and to detect traffic incidents and violations in different areas of the city – all in a matter of seconds.

With no need to generate reports to understand real-time traffic conditions and ongoing traffic trends, managers can also make faster, better informed decisions – helping to optimize traffic flow and public safety.

To find out more about Hikvision’s Traffic Visualization Dashboard and how it can help your city or road network to address immediate and longer term traffic management challenges, contact us today.

Key features of the Hikvision Traffic Visualization Dashboard

• Immersive 2D or 3D map-based interface for traffic insights ‘at a glance’

• Simple configuration for specific use cases – including congestion management and traffic violation management

The global smart lock market demand is expected to reach 41.9 million units by 2028, registering a CAGR of 21.4% from 2021 to 2028, according to a new report by Grand View Research. Rising awareness among consumers regarding the benefits and convenience offered by smart home security solutions and surging adoption of connected devices are primarily driving the industry growth, according to the research.

In addition, the hospitality sector has witnessed a large-scale deployment of smart locks with leading companies and stay aggregators increasingly relying on them to ensure security and accessibility to both customers and owners.

The rising global smartphone penetration has further opened new growth prospects for industry participants due to their continuous efforts to launch apps to manage the locking/unlocking procedures. Furthermore, prominent market players are incorporating various innovative techniques, such as Wifi-enabled locking/unlocking and Bluetooth-based (BLE) locking/unlocking using smartphones and other devices, in their smart lock models. Touch panels are also being incorporated to facilitate the entry of passwords or pattern-based locking/unlocking.

Retrofittable locks

Major companies in the marketplace, such as August Home Inc., are developing retrofittable locks that effectively cater to the customers’ demands. Such locks allow users to retain the same design as before with minute details refined and have embedded advanced features.

According to the analysts at Grand View, it is the residential segment that is expected to account for the highest revenue share of approximately 60% by the end of 2028. The rising number of renovation and new construction projects have led to increased installation of such locks, thereby positively impacting the industry potentially over the next seven years.

Geographically, the research suggests that Asia Pacific is poised to exhibit the highest CAGR of over 22% over the next seven years due to the rising number of modernisation activities across the hospitality and residential sectors, along with the rising awareness regarding advanced security solutions across emerging economies such as India and Korea.

When Cubic Transportation Systems and Transport for London identified that the Limehouse Link Tunnel in London’s East End would benefit from an upgraded traffic safety monitoring system, they opted for the advantages offered by Predator Ultra HD cameras from 360 Vision Technology.

Let’s face it: traffic tunnels are cool. Perhaps it’s their artificially lit, subterranean nature, coupled with the unspoken thrill of passing smoothly, at high speed, through an entirely manmade structure. Maybe it’s their place in Hollywood’s celluloid iconography, light tracing the contours of our protagonist’s face as they race toward, or away from, one crisis or another.

Maybe it’s the way tunnels are the embodiment of human ingenuity made solid, engineering as pure solution: let’s get from A to B as efficiently as possible, and if that means going under or through whatever gets in our way, well, that’s what we’re going to do.

Whatever it is, tunnels are irrefutably cool.

And the Limehouse Link Tunnel is one of London’s coolest. Opened for use in 1993, it stretches for a little over a mile under London’s East End. Travelling along the A1203 from The Highway to Canary Wharf, it takes vehicles under the Limehouse Basin, Limekiln Dock and Dundee Wharf, then curves north-east under Westferry Road to emerge near the West India Quay DLR station. It’s apt that the entrances and exits to the tunnel are known as ‘portals’: the Limehouse Link Tunnel transforms commuters into virtual time travellers, entering from the historic, fabled streets of the East End and emerging, blinking, into the hyper-modern glass and steel-emblazoned environs of the reclaimed Canary Wharf.

Those portals are adorned with distinctive artworks, glimpsed by the passengers in the thousands of vehicles which traverse the length of the tunnel in both directions every day : on the western end is Zadok Ben-David’s circle of silhouettes, ‘Restless Dream’, while the eastern portal features an untitled abstract by Nigel Hall.

Underground safety
For a massively busy tunnel like the Limehouse Link, safety is paramount. Speed limits are set at 30mph, and Transport for London traffic management teams constantly monitor the live video feeds from cameras sited strategically along its course to ensure traffic flows smoothly and any incidents can be acted upon swiftly and safely.

The camera system in the Limehouse Link Tunnel is maintained by Cubic Transportation Systems. Award-winning Cubic has worked with TfL for many years, helping to deliver the famed Oyster payment system and continually working to reinvent the way integrated technology is used in managing traffic and public transport across London.

Recently, it was decided that the existing cameras in the Limehouse Link Tunnel were in need of an upgrade. Cubic Senior Field Services Manager Neil Ashford explains.

“The older cameras that were being used in the tunnel had become obsolete,” he says. “This was due to camera part obsolescence fault levels increasing, and critical areas of tunnel coverage becoming more challenging to maintain with adequate CCTV coverage. Roadside cameras need to be tough and reliable, so we needed a ruggedised model that could withstand the rigours of constant use in that environment.”

Cubic had used Predator Ultra HD cameras from UK manufacturer 360 Vision Technology on an earlier tunnel project, and this experience convinced Neil Ashford, and Cubic, that they’d be up to the task.

The Predator PTZ camera range is a high performance, fully featured range of ruggedised pan-tilt-zoom cameras, designed and manufactured in the UK. The distinctive Predator range comes with multiple protocols as standard, allowing quick and simple integration with DVRs, matrices, and IP VMS systems. The Predator Ultra cameras provide HD images, 30x optical zoom, and extremely low light operation.

Technically adept
One challenge the Limehouse Link Tunnel upgrade project faced was transmission: how best to ensure the 1080p HD images captured by the cameras could be sent to the TfL control centres. Thankfully, in addition to its direct IP connection options, the Predator cameras feature a 12-pin connection in the base of each unit, allowing the new replacement cameras to be connected directly to the existing cable infrastructure of the old camera system. This feature alone saved significant time and installation costs.

“Being able to install the new Predator cameras without making any changes to the local camera infrastructure was a great advantage in reducing installation time and cost of the project,”,” Neil Ashford says. “Another of the key factors in choosing to use the Predators was the relationship we have with the manufacturer. They are the true expert on the camera, and working directly with them can help us to quickly and efficiently solve any issues that might arise.

“Being UK-based is part of it. But the crucial thing is access to knowledgeable staff. I have a highly technical team of engineers, and thankfully 360 Vision have highly technical staff who listen to and address any problems that we find with a camera. It’s a very good working relationship. In fact, I would go as far as to say that they are the best supplier I have ever worked with. I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend them on future projects.”

Proactive monitoring
A total of 56 Predator Ultra 30:1 HD cameras are now in active use in the Limehouse Link Tunnel. The cameras are monitored at a variety of locations, including the primary Transport for London Network Management Control Centre (NMCC).
The complex, 24-hour NMCC operation integrates previously separate control departments into one central hub, providing a more efficient and linked-up approach to roads management. It’s part of the ‘Vision Zero’ approach to traffic and transport strategy, with a long-term aim of eliminating all deaths and serious injuries from London’s streets.

Operators look out not just for active incidents such as accidents and collisions, but for anything that has the potential to cause one, including loose manhole covers or potholes. When one of these situations is spotted, the Predator camera is zoomed in to confirm its cause and help to diagnose a swift solution, which could include closing the tunnel for rapid repairs.

Both Cubic and TfL have been extremely impressed with the performance of the Predators.

“TfL has received the new cameras very well,” Neil Ashford says. “Image quality is remarkably high, and it allows the operations team to get the pictures that they need to assess and respond to incidents as they occur. We’re very satisfied, so much so that further use of the Predator camera will be at the forefront of future projects.”
Jason Wyatt, National Account Manager at 360 Vision Technology, says the company is proud to work with Cubic on key projects like this one.

“We’re extremely happy to be able to provide our ruggedised Predator cameras for crucial traffic projects such as monitoring the Limehouse Link Tunnel,” he says. “Working with Cubic and TfL is a real vote of confidence not just in our products, but also in the technical knowledge and skillsets of our full 360 Vision Technology team.”

For further information on full range of rugged PTZ surveillance, thermal and radar imaging cameras, customers can contact 360 Vision Technology on +44 (0)1928 570000, email: info@360visiontechnology.com, or visit their website at https://www.360visiontechnology.com