Case Studies - Transportation

Was that a dinosaur in the subway?

No, but if there had have been, the new closed circuit television system would have recorded it!

South Kensington Station was opened on Christmas Eve 1868 by the Metropolitan Railway. From the station ticket hall there is a pedestrian subway known as the 'museum subway'.

This gives easy access to the Natural History, Science and Victoria and Albert Museums and is used daily by commuters, local residents and tourists visiting the many attractions in the area.

Secure Vision was awarded the contract by Metronet Rail to design, supply and install a new digital closed circuit television system within the subway which interfaced with the existing station system.

South Kensington is a listed building because it is a building of architectural and historical interest so this was not going to be a straight forward design and install project.

Due to its heritage status, many considerations have to be taken into account when designing new systems where the appearance of the building could be affected.

Before any works can be started, heritage approvals must be gained for the design via the relevant Planning and Conservation Officer.

The design and associated drawings which Secure Vision produces are a part of the approvals process. To meet the surveillance Standard (OS004) and CCTV Standard (ST0015) the new system design included the installation of 29 new cameras being installed along the length of the subway from the station ticket hall to the museum exits.

The new cameras would be enclosed in vandal resistant housings. A number of the housings had to have specially manufactured mounting brackets so that they could be mounted on the arch of the ceiling to meet the standards.

To gain the heritage approval, all of the steel containment had to be painted. Within the white tiled area, the steel was painted in a white gloss finish and where steel trunking, conduits and fixings had to be installed, the steel was cut to length before being sent away to be powder coated with the correct RAL colour (1001) so that it was in keeping with the brown colour tiles through the subway.

The existing system had 41 cameras, with 7 analogue multiplexers and time lapse video tape recorders. As part of this project Secure Vision decommissioned the recording equipment and replaced with 4 x 20 Channel Darlex Digital Video Recorders.

The systems change over had to be completed without loss of system performance so project planning was critical.

We also installed a British Transport Police play back suite in the station.

The project was delivered without loss of system performance and within budget. Such was the success of this project that a London Underground representative put into writing to Metrone:

"I would like to congratulate you and your guys on a great job, the general installation and image quality provided is very good indeed".

This resulted in a letter from a Metronet Senior Communications Engineer, Jan Wosiek, who wrote:

"I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and your team for a job well done...

...despite many problems associated with working in our type of environment, Secure Vision have proved they can deliver quality work to be held up as an example to all"