CEM Ambiente is the company responsible for managing the service of collecting, transporting and disposing of solid urban waste, including the province of Milan and 49 municipalities to the east of Milan, in a basin with more than 420,000 residents.
CEM Ambiente is the company responsible for managing the service of collecting, transporting and disposing of solid urban waste, including the province of Milan and 49 municipalities to the east of Milan, in a basin with more than 420,000 residents. The company's core business is based on the collection of waste with sorting and the related services of disposal and salvage of materials. In 2007, the need to protect residents against crime, and the optimal results achieved by CEM Ambiente, led the municipalities to decide to extend the installation of cameras throughout the territory; not just in the ecological platforms.
The solution involved the creation of a 25 km-long wireless backbone to connect the different points in the territory, which permits the remote maintenance of the entire system and the resolution of possible anomalies. The 350 Axis network cameras were installed to monitor “sensitive” points such as squares, schools, public parking lots, and sports grounds, and to keep watch over the principal access roads to the municipalities, and were selected based on different requirements: indoor or outdoor locations, areas with dim lighting, and the need for remote control.
The monitoring of the access routes to the territory allows the creation of a database of vehicle license plates used by law enforcement to meet any requirements relating to security and investigations. In relation to road safety, the placement of cameras at certain particularly dangerous intersections allowed the dynamics of accidents to be clarified, even in the absence of eye witnesses.
Axis day/night cameras for being capable of capturing high-quality images under all lighting conditions; as the observation cameras, Axis PTZ camera , Axis day/night dome and Axis WDR dome cameras were selected, the former because it offers PTZ features that can be managed remotely by operators using a mouse or joystick, and the latter because it permits the magnification of small and distant objects, such as license plates, which can be identified in real time to obtain a sharp and clear view even under difficult lighting conditions.
The monitoring and recording centers are spread around the police stations in the municipalities, while technical system supervision and maintenance is entrusted to CEM Ambiente; in this way, each municipality can independently monitor its own territory and use the system to intervene quickly in case of need, by delegating the management and maintenance activities to CEM Ambiente.
The desire to continue the expansion of the system is undoubtedly the best testimony to the satisfaction of the associated municipalities: besides being indispensable for intervening in case of need, the cameras installed in public areas also act as an effective deterrent against threats and aggressive behavior, theft and acts of vandalism.