NICE Systems announced that it has successfully implemented, in coordination with the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and theHarris County Information Technology Center, NICE Situator and NiceVision Net to secure the Houston Ship Channel, following orders in 2012 and 2013.
NICE Systems announced that it has successfully implemented, in coordination with the Harris County Sheriff's Office and theHarris County Information Technology Center, NICE Situator and NiceVision Net to secure the Houston Ship Channel, following orders in 2012 and 2013. The ship channel is one of the United States' busiest waterways and part of the world's 10th largest seaport. The NICE implementation supports the Houston Ship Channel Security District's core mission of deploying a well-coordinated, system-wide approach to security in order to maximize preparedness and response, and mitigate security threats.
A 24/7 monitoring center operated by the Harris County Sheriff's Office is the focal point for threat assessment and local/state response at the ship channel. Here, NICE Situator fuses the information fromfixed and mobile video, radar, sonar, AIS ship tracking and more, and automates response plans so that operators can better visualize and manage situations in real-time, both on land and on the water. NICE is also providing a web client for its video solution, as well as mobile client software for Situator so that first responders can view task lists and more effectively synchronize their response processes.
In a step toward improving mobile responses, interagency coordination, and interoperability, the Situator software has also been deployed in the Harris County Mobile Command Center and at other locations in collaboration with the Police Department atthe Port of Houston Authority, the Harris County Office of Homeland Security and Emergency Management, the Harris County Sheriff's Office, and the U.S. Coast Guard.
“We view NICE Situator as essential to our core mission of securing the Houston Ship Channel. It has helped us achieve greater situational awareness, improve collaboration and information sharing across response teams, and automate various processes,” said Lieutenant Godfrey T. Eta, Harris County Sheriff's Office. ”It's a paradigm change in the way we manage safety and security at the Ship Channel.”
As a first step in cross-region collaboration, NICE will also integrate video feeds from a large municipality in Harris County into NICE Situator.
“The Harris County Sheriff's Office and the Harris County Information Technology Center have gone to great lengths to keep the Houston Ship Channel secure, and we're especially excited about NICE's role in that process,” said Yaron Tchwella, President of the NICE Security Group. “This deployment exemplifies a growing desire by many organizations to improve how they manage routine and complex situations and collaborate with other stakeholders and agencies. Harris County's vision of extending these capabilities regionally is a forward-thinking model that we believe other counties will follow.”