On Aug. 23, 2010, a tourist bus in Manila, the Philippines was hijacked by a former policeman. Armed with an M-16 rifle, the hijacker began a 12-hour standoff with the police. The incident left eight tourists dead, and an official investigation report by the Philippine officials identified eight critical errors that led to the unfortunate result. One of the blunders was an ineffective rescue mission due to the lack of information inside the bus.
Public transportation is vulnerable to threats and attacks. Governments around the world are investing more in transportation safety, which in turn increases demand for mobile surveillance solutions. According to research, the mobile video surveillance market will be US$1.55 billion by 2015, at a CAGR of 13.7 percent over 2008 to 2015. The potential lies in not only tightened security for drivers and passengers, but also huge gains in operational efficiency for fleet managers.
On Aug. 23, 2010, a tourist bus in Manila, the Philippines was hijacked by a former policeman. Armed with an M-16 rifle, the hijacker began a 12-hour standoff with the police. The incident left eight tourists dead, and an official investigation report by the Philippine officials identified eight critical errors that led to the unfortunate result. One of the blunders was an ineffective rescue mission due to the lack of information inside the bus.
Public transportation is vulnerable to threats and attacks. Governments around the world are investing more in transportation safety, which in turn increases demand for mobile surveillance solutions. According to research, the mobile video surveillance market will be US$1.55 billion by 2015, at a CAGR of 13.7 percent over 2008 to 2015. The potential lies in not only tightened security for drivers and passengers, but also huge gains in operational efficiency for fleet managers.
Mobile surveillance solutions have been gaining traction due to increased concerns over terrorist attacks and criminal activities that threaten passenger and fleet safety. There are also clear financial benefits for installing mobile solutions. “The biggest benefits for fleet managers revolve around litigation mitigation, lowered insurance costs, improved driver behavior and safer driving, reduced fuel consumption via monitoring idling times, improved productivity via route optimization, and proactive vehicle maintenance via real-time alerts,” said Chalon Dilber, Director of Marketing and Product Management for Safety Vision. 
Litigation is always a concern for fleet managers, and having evidence readily available reduces the time and cost required for each case. “The main financial incentive is reduction of liability as there is video evidence to support or deny a claim brought about by a customer or employee,” said Peter Simmons, Director of Marketing for Seon Design. “This is initially difficult to quantify if you have no experience with a lawsuit of this nature. However, one avoided lawsuit can easily pay for the system installed in one or more vehicles.”
Furthermore, how the driver operates the vehicle is directly associated with safety, customer satisfaction and fuel consumption. Identifying and correcting bad driving habits are made possible through data collection and analysis. “Depending on the configuration of the video system, the camera views can be used for driver training and driver behavior modification,” Simmons said. “The GPS and ‘G sensor' data can be analyzed to see if the vehicle was driven on the proper route and that there was no heavy acceleration or deceleration which would impact passenger safety as well as fuel usage.”
With IP-based technologies and 3-G wireless transmission, fleet managers have greater oversight over drivers and vehicles , comparedto traditional tracking systems, said Jay Biring, New Business Manager for Exeros Technologies. “In addition to location, speed, direction of travel and four sensors around the vehicle, a video-tracking system can also offer live video and audio. In effect, the operator is there in real time rather that just viewing an updated position marker, as is the case with traditional systems.”
Setting Priorities
Mobile solutions share the same basic principles with fixed security systems, but there are unique elements that must be considered for different applications. Take police vehicles. HD is the priority, said James Wang, Overseas Product Manager at Dahua Technology.
“Public buses, on the other hand, should be easy to maintain, while taxis value cost-effectiveness and rail applications demand high stability.” The environment and nature of an application create specific demands on equipment. “DVRs for rail and bus applications, for example, differ mainly in anti-vibration mechanisms and power supplies,” Wang said.
“Rail has stricter guidelines on safety, temperature range and maintenance; magnetic inference must be dealt with properly. The high running speed also places greater demands on wireless transmission.”
Another difference between buses and rail is the connectivity of the system to other systems on the vehicle. “The vast majority of bus systems are analog-based with connections to local DVRs. Most bus-based video systems connect to some other peripherals such as GPS, passenger counting and fare box,” Simmons said. “Train-based systems can connect to other video systems on the adjacent carriages, to form a large video network on a single train.”
To avoid headaches, due diligence should be made in designing, deploying and maintaining the system. “The majority of the problems can be traced back to poor installation practices onboard, which are much less forgiving in a mobile environment than in a fixed security environment,” Dilber said.
“A big problem area for large deployments is improper installation and configuration of wireless networks, which are used for automation of video downloads, health checks and configuration/firmware updates. The best mitigation policies involve certified installations, proper checklists as well as extensive site surveys prior to going live.”
Affordability
The core functionality of a mobile DVR is to be able to record video and audio, Biring said. “Most DVRs also have time-and-date stamps. Others may record GPS positioning and upload video via Wi-Fi at a depot. Some mobile DVRs provide live streaming over 3-G, but few of them can do it well.”
Essential features are rugged build and removable recording media for the DVR, Simmons said. “Ease of installation and the ability to plug in many signals from peripherals as well as GPS signals for location positioning are becoming basic requirements. Integration with other systems, such as passenger counting, live vehicle location and student tracking, is also becoming more essential. In addition, most systems are sold with wiring between the camera and DVR that provides power, video and audio feeds — all is accomplished in one cable.”
For end users that are not particularly familiar with security products, the wide variance in pricing may seem confusing. As with many other scenarios in life, you get what you pay for. “The major difference between low- and high-end is the clearness of the encoding, the demand of storage medium and additional functionality,” Wang said. “On the individual DVR/ NVR level, support for the latest compression algorithms, HD network cameras and reliability of storage media is the main differentiator,” Dilber added. “Also to be considered are the availability and reliability of enterprise-level central management systems, as well as the ecosystem and hardware flexibility to support third-party, nonsecurity applications.”
According to Simmons, major pricing differences can be attributed to the number of cameras supported, the type of recording media used (hard disk, solid state or flash memory), as well as the overall ruggedness, build quality and other factors similar to the design of fixed DVRs. “In addition, extra features such as support for wireless networks, the number of signal inputs and inclusion of G sensors and other peripherals can affect the price. Additional costs for VMS to manage wireless downloads of video data and other network management tools can also affect the selling price.” Low-cost mobile DVRs could mean lower reliability, said Jerry Qin, Project Manager for Mobile Products at Hikvision Digital Technologies.
“Public buses or long-range shuttles are more likely to utilize these products due to budgetary constraints. Some customers test high-end and low-cost products side by side for a short period of time, ranging from two to four weeks. Reliability issues take longer than this to emerge, and customers who do not look at long-term implications will not see the advantage of high-end products. A more appropriate trial phase would be roughly eight weeks.”
HD video is always nice to have, but fleet managers may not have the budget to cover the higher cost. While there is strong demand for HD video, the higher component costs render the end product unapproachable for many, Biring said. “Look at internal video cards — there are only a few manufacturers in the world that are producing exceptional hardware. HD requires more processing power, which in turn demands better cooling and greater voltage and current.” These create a limitation on how affordable the products can be.