CITY OF LONDON – A SECURE CITY
The City of London Corporation is dedicated to maintaining the City as one of the world’s leading international financial and business centers and whose key focus is to provide high quality services to its residents, business communities, and for London, as a whole, by using the digital space, data and technology to achieve their Secure City Programme.
Their Secure City Programme is a joint initiative between the City of London Corporation and City of London Police, which aims to deliver significant improvements to the safety and security of residents, workers and visitors by future-proofing its security arrangements to meet the challenges and threats of the future.
THE REQUIREMENT
In 2020, City of London, using Crown Commercial Services Framework, procured the services of Synectics Security to design, supply, install, commission and maintain its visionary IP Video Surveillance system to aid the realisation of their Secure City Programme.
This provision of works included;
- Detailed solution and system design
- Supply, implementation, testing and commissioning of an integrated Video Management System
- Video Analytics system that allowed stakeholders to access both real time, historic video and video analytics data
“Our aim is to ensure the City is the safest city area in the world. Synectics shares our vision for the future of fully integrated public space security and surveillance, and we are confident their team can provide a future-proof platform to help us achieve the aims of ourselves and the City of London Corporation.”
David Evans, Commander
THE SOLUTION
Synectics Security’s IP Video Surveillance System solution was developed in conjunction with City of London IT department, is compatible with all IT standards and aligned to City of London’s “Cloud First” requirement using Microsoft Azure tenancy. We ensured full resilience through the implementation of primary and secondary data centre storage facilities (Azure South and West).
The solution was designed to provide capability to enhance situational awareness through mobile viewing and transmission to any eligible user, anywhere and on any device. Whilst also providing video evidence and data for both security and parking enforcement. It was essential that users and operators were able to run multiple concurrent viewing from individual cameras (with different zoom windows within a Field of View), whilst also allowing 2-way control of cameras.
The Synectics Security initiative transforms situational awareness, identifying risk, prioritising threats, and supporting real-time responsive action, across one of the world’s leading financial districts. Using integrated native cloud technology, the solution bypass traditional dependencies on local hardware storage and met the City’s “Cloud First” objectives.
Synectics are deploying the latest cloud-based capabilities within its Synergy platform, alongside its recording management software and integrated video analytics capability. This Synergy approach enables analysis of live video surveillance from hundreds of City-owned and third-party camera sources, including other Police services and local transport operators, to deliver a new model for real time incident management. Using the newly released Synergy mobile application, the City’s central Control Room connects to over 100 mobile users and enables rapid bi-directional co-ordinated responses in the field.
“We are delighted that the City of London has placed its trust in Synectics to support its Secure City Programme. The City of London is going beyond any other public space project we currently have in operation, using Synergy to deliver the most complete cloud-based video-driven surveillance in a major City centre today.
Our work with the City is the latest stage in our Synergy platform evolution. Our ability to provide a seamless transition path to hybrid and cloud deployments enables operators to take advantage of cloud benefits in a way that suits their individual security, surveillance, and operational management demands. We look forward to working with the City’s team to bring their vision to reality.”
Paul Webb, Chief Executive of Synectics
We firmly believe that by working in partnership with City of London and selected solution providers, we were able to meet the strategic, operational goals and support the realisation of their ground-breaking Secure City Programme.