When it comes to the effective surveillance monitoring of a fast moving service station environment which typically has to cater for hundreds of customers every day as well as deliveries of gasoline and other operational issues, owners and managers across the U.S. are looking at ways to keep a watchful eye on their businesses when they are out of the office, at home or visiting other sites.
When it comes to the effective surveillance monitoring of a fast moving service station environment which typically has to cater for hundreds of customers every day as well as deliveries of gasoline and other operational issues, owners and managers across the U.S. are looking at ways to keep a watchful eye on their businesses when they are out of the office, at home or visiting other sites.
One approach increasingly finding favor to support informed management decisions on the move is the adoption of specialized cell phone applications to call up “live” video in concert with the installed surveillance Infrastructure.
An example, that aptly reflects this trend to allow owners to remotely monitor surveillance images, is the positive experience of service station owner Robert Oyster. Oyster, who is responsible for three Shell and Chevron gas stations in the East of the San Francisco Bay area, decided to start using the application to monitor his daily business operations via his iPhone from traffic flow to employee performance. This move to adopt the solution followed the installation of three Dedicated Micros' DVRs and 44 surveillance cameras across his service stations and was driven by a recommendation from local integrator PSS Electronics who suggested that he look at using software for remote monitoring.
"I am delighted with the performance of the solution which only took a matter of minutes to set up on my iPhone. This application, which is extremely intuitive, has proven to be a real-time saver when it comes to running my business as I am on the road much of the time and it is not always convenient or desirable, to bring a laptop with me,” Oyster said. ”Now by simply touching the screen I can readily view and select video from my service stations on the iPhone and, if there is an incident, make an informed decision as to whether I actually need to go there and take care of the situation in person, or whether my time is best used elsewhere.”
"This ability to see what is going on, literally as it happens and even zoom in for more detail, was brought into sharp focus in a recent incident where a driver drove through the front window of one of our stations. Having been informed of the incident I was immediately able to take out my iPhone and in seconds see the situation from the viewpoint of the onsite cameras and speak to my employees before making the hour-long journey to the scene."
The MobileCamViewer has allowed Oyster to maximize the benefits of the surveillance cameras and Dedicated Micros' DVRs installed at his service stations.
Oyster is so happy with how the application has performed to date, forwarding the interests of his business, that he is planning to have it installed on a further three iPhones. This will mean that his service station managers can also take advantage of this application.