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24 new buses lined up for CCTV upgrade at trentbarton

Posted: 20 June 2014 | Synectic Systems Group | No comments yet

Leading East Midlands bus operator trentbarton is equipping 24 new buses with the latest CCTV technology.

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Leading East Midlands bus operator trentbarton is equipping 24 new buses with the latest CCTV technology.

The systems for the 16 Optare Solos and 8 Mercedes-Benz Citaros are part of an ongoing technology evolution at the innovative operator and will be delivered and installed by mobile CCTV specialist Synectics.

Anna Blunden, Insurance Administrator at trentbarton, explains the importance of the operator’s investment in the technology: “CCTV is absolutely vital to us. We rely heavily on it for many, many things – from customer service and passenger safety through to insurance claims and training.”

“A technology upgrade like this one brings with it a massive step-change in quality and length of recordings. This is important for things like countering insurance fraud, where improved quality footage helps immensely. Rather than mere blurred blots on the footage, we can now see clearly what a driver in another vehicle is wearing, see a motif on a t-shirt, which makes it a lot easier to identify third parties involved in incidents.”

The heart of trentbarton’s new systems is the Timespace V400 digital recorder, which features a 1TB hard-drive to store higher quality footage for longer, and can embed vehicle signals (indicators, brakes etc.) as well as date, time, speed and GPS location in the footage for evidential playback.

Footage from the new vehicles will be accessible from the same straightforward PCLink software currently in use at trentbarton, making it easy for CCTV operatives at each of the five depots to retrieve footage and respond to requests. An average size trentbarton depot processes around 150 requests for footage per month from customer services alone, and a further 100 requests for accident footage.

Anna adds: “Over time, we’ve increased the number of cameras on our buses. We started with a couple of cameras inside the vehicle and only a few days of recording. Today we have cameras on the inside, nearside, offside and front of the vehicle, and recording lengths of up to a month. It means we need more storage and manage more footage, but if we get a claim saying one of our buses hit another vehicle, we can be sure to have the footage to show what happened.”

“The team at Synectics has been helping us evolve our on-board technology and continues to be a great strategic partner. We’re not afraid of the latest technology, but for a system as important as CCTV, change has to be carefully managed and in line with our business objectives.”

The 24 new buses carrying V400 DVRs will commence service on the Rainbow1 line in the next couple of months, connecting Nottingham city centre with Ripley and Alfreton.