Bristol Temple Quay video upgrade is a model for public realm surveillance – showing how to overcome performance, quality, and affordability challenges.
Temple Quay and Glass Wharf areas are mixed commercial, leisure and residential developments, managed by global property leaders Avison Young in the heart of one of the UK’s most vibrant, historic cities. It is part of the Bristol Temple Quarter Enterprise Zone which is home to hundreds of businesses, government offices, serviced offices and co-working spaces, bars, restaurants, and residential properties. The whole area is also benefiting from significant further investment and development.
To maintain a welcoming environment, and ensure high standards of public safety and security, Avison Young manages 24/7 security monitoring and patrols, with officers supported by real time video surveillance.
Challenges
With an attractive waterway cutting through the development and an extensive riverfront, Temple Quay and Glass Wharf are busy day and night, with thousands of commuters passing through every day to use the adjacent mainline Temple Meads railway station. Football crowds come through on matchdays, and Temple Quay also has a thriving nighttime economy.
The 20-year-old video system relied on by the round-the-clock security team was proving to be increasingly unreliable, with underground cabling and equipment prone to flooding; cameras producing increasingly poor-quality images; and a cumbersome VMS operating system.
Major undertaking
However, the prospect of a complete system upgrade was daunting: replacing the backbone infrastructure, cameras, recorders, and VMS seemed likely to be a major undertaking. At this point, Avison Young learned of an award-winning video solution recently completed for Bristol Zoological Society, by KIS Fire & Security – a solution that took advantage of affordable, robust IDIS technology to ensure public safety in what could be a challenging setting. This sounded like a perfect model, and KIS was invited to deliver a similarly transformative solution at Temple Quay.
Solution
KIS completed the civil works, laying the new fibreoptic backbone and solving the flooding issue, then installed the complete end-to-end IDIS video system including:
- IDIS Center VMS
- 8MP IDIS PTZ cameras that deliver superior quality images at up to 31x zoom
- Vandal-resistant 5MP IR Dome Cameras
- 8-ch 4K recorders supporting UHD display
- Specialist network operator’s keyboard
- Mountings, POE switches, and all accessories.
The solution now gives the security team complete area coverage, including full visibility along – and across – the waterway, with superior PTZ camera performance and fluent, intuitive controls for control room operators.
KIS engineers completed the full upgrade ahead of schedule in under four months, with rapid installation supported by IDIS plug-and-play DirectIP technology ensuring instant full functionality of all devices.
Results and benefits
The results were immediate: supported by complete area visibility, within days the joint Glass Wharf / Temple Quay security patrols were providing rapid first aid assistance to members of the public, pushing back against would-be thieves using e-scooters, and supporting several police investigations where this had not previously been possible. Officers’ ability to respond has been transformed, and they are now working more effectively with local agencies including police community support officers and British Transport Police.
Benefits include:
- Rapid implementation, with instant functionality of all components
- System sustainability, with extended warranties and industry-best low operating costs
- Future flexibility, e.g. with ability to add third-party devices, adopt emerging AI tech etc.
- Easy operation with powerful VMS functionality including easy footage search and retrieval
- Pin-sharp image quality 24/7 in varied lighting conditions
- Extended recording, with failover protection ensuring no loss of video data in the event of network instability.
The Glass Wharf Temple Quay IDIS video infrastructure also delivers the benefits of an industrybest low total cost of ownership, with extended warranties against equipment failure; and assured technical support from IDIS now cements the long-term relationship between Avison Young and KIS Fire & Security.
Rob Morgan, Director of KIS Fire & Security said, "With IDIS, instant full functionality of all devices means we can be more certain about completion times, even for major public space projects like Temple Quay and Glass Wharf. The system also comes with extended warranties, and failover protection against loss of data in the event of network instability - for public area surveillance this kind of reliability is essential."