Minot International Airport was handling roughly 100,000 enplanements per year before a local oil surge extraction in 2011.
Minot International Airport was handling roughly 100,000 enplanements per year before a local oil surge extraction in 2011. After which, airport traffic increased to over 400,000 enplanements. As a result, airport personnel quickly became overwhelmed by the traffic influx. Additionally, airport security staff could only monitor small portions of the terminal due to limited surveillance capabilities.
As the number of enplanements grew, securing direct public access points became a high priority. With overcrowding and limited parking wreaking havoc on the small airport, approval for the creation of a new terminal and parking structure finally came in 2012. To secure the new airport expansion and update existing infrastructure, the managing architecture and engineering firm identified the need for a custom-built, unified surveillance system.
BCDVideo solution
BCDVideo was called upon to develop custom-built servers to support a fully unified surveillance solution. By combining the most effective backend video hardware with
Axis cameras and
Genetec video management software, the highest certified throughput rates were achieved. The BCDVideo Nova servers used in the project support 1300 Mbps – over 500-megapixel cameras on a single server.
The user-friendly Nova video servers (at right) are optimized to run Genetec Security Desk & Configuration, a necessity for the airport to support effective access control.
This allows airport security personnel to easily view video on their mobile device as well. The seamless connection between video surveillance and access control was all supported by BCDVideo hardware custom-built for the project.
In the event of the main server going down, the archive server supports 7 days of storage with failover RAID 5 with hot spare. Additionally, BCDVideo’s 5-year next day on-site warranty ensures that 7-day threshold is plenty of time to get the main server back up and running.
Project results
By 2016, the expansion project was complete. The new terminal at Minot International Airport in North Dakota covered 121,000 square feet – nearly four times larger than the old terminal. The parking capacity also increased from 450 vehicles to 1450 with the addition of two new surface lots. In total, over $84 million was spent on upgrades and expansion.
The senior project manager for the integrator overseeing the installation of communications and IT infrastructure for the new terminal called the combined access control and video security system one of the best he’s ever seen at an airport. With the latest technological advancements and user-intuitive design, airport security personnel can now proactively monitor 6 new gates and 4 jet bridges.
Just as the airport was built with future growth in mind, the BCDVideo unified solution offers high-performance and scalability well into the future.