All transport hubs, whether consumer or commercial, face two significant challenges: keeping people and property safe, and ensuring that both pass from entrance to exit efficiently and economically.
A common view is that tackling one inevitably has a negative impact on the other, for example that increasing security measures in response to heightened threat levels, will always lead to slower passenger or cargo processing. According to global surveillance business Synectics, it’s a myth that needs debunking.
Attending this year’s Transport Security Expo taking place at Olympia in London (2-3 December), Synectics suggests that by enhancing situational awareness with intelligently integrated surveillance, transport hub operators have the opportunity to make significant improvements in both these important areas.
Chris Bishop, International Business Development Manager at Synectics, explains: “Whether discussing sea ports, railway stations, bus terminals or busy airports - identifying and responding to potential threats boils down to one thing. Awareness.
“Transport hubs operate a vast range of security, emergency and operational systems to protect people, goods and infrastructure. But monitoring these systems separately is time consuming, can be a significant draw on resources and does not afford operators a holistic view of the site in question. Data, though abundant in volume, is often fragmented.
“This is a situation that perpetuates transport security misconceptions, as a disjointed approach can (and often does) mean that increased emphasis on safety and security impacts negatively on operational efficiency, and vice versa.
“However, adopting an open architecture, intelligently integrated surveillance command and control platform to collate that data – enabling it to be monitored, controlled and (with the help of analytics) understood, in a single unified environment – dramatically improves situational awareness. This in turn facilitates multiple benefits across an entire site, without forcing compromise in any one specific area of operation.”