The city of Vicente López located in the north of Buenos Aires, in recent years has positioned itself at the forefront of the global Smart City movement. In 2014, the local government decided to transform Vicente López into a Safe & Smart City with a goal of proactive crime prevention. One major challenge was the limited ability to effectively observe live video feeds and review recorded video.
Becoming a Safe & Smart City
Certified Systems Integrator Exanet S.A. was contracted to provide a scalable, modern and unified video surveillance and monitoring system. Initially, 700 new IP cameras were installed with Milestone video management software. The camera count has risen quickly to over 1,350 cameras, to meet the target of 1,500 full HD cameras recording 24/7 by 2020.
Agent Vi’s savVi video analytics solution was also installed at the city’s Urban Monitoring Center (the CMU). savVi offers a set of advanced, automated video analysis tools enabling real-time event detection, video search, and business intelligence. savVi has been integrated directly into over 370 AXIS P1365 fixed cameras.
The integration with Milestone XProtect Corporate video management software (VMS) enables alerts and real-time detection clips from savVi to appear within the XProtect Smart Client interface. The deep integration of savVi’s forensic search tool into the Milestone software platform allows video search results to be viewed directly from within the Smart Client, creating a seamless user experience.
Proactive City Management
In line with the city’s stated goal of increasing public safety and proactively preventing crimes, behaviors typical to the area were determined. These profiles were used to define and schedule savVi’s real-time detection rules that alert to scenarios including crowding and loitering in public areas (government buildings, educational institutions, etc.), speed analysis to detect traffic congestion, stopped vehicles at intersections and in restricted areas and vehicles driving the wrong way on one-way streets, abandoned objects in public buildings, perimeter breaches, and more.
In addition, savVi’s video search capability was enabled to begin collecting metadata to allow the investigation of criminal acts in the post-incident phase, with a view to dramatically reducing investigation time in time-sensitive situations.
savVi’s business intelligence (BI) capabilities such as people and vehicle counting are employed by Vicente López to provide insight through automated statistical analysis of traffic volumes, movement trends and motion patterns. Data related to people and vehicles are presented via advanced visualization tools such as charts, graphs and heat maps.
savVi has enabled highly accurate monitoring of the city’s video feeds, effectively increasing the level of security without increasing the number of operators.
Implementation of video analytics has brought positive changes: savVi’s real-time alerts act to detect crimes as the incident unfolds to enable immediate responses, while savVi’s video search gives rapid post-event investigation, and BI statistical data enhances Smart City operations.
Public Safety and Businesses Protected
savVi was deployed at various sporting sites in the 2018 Summer Youth Olympic Games in Buenos Aires, where it was used to safeguard the BMX Freestyle and Skate competitions at the Buenos Aires Urban Park. A “technological fence” comprising savVi detection rules such as crossing a line, loitering, occupancy, suspicious object, and asset protection played a key role in protecting athletes, visitors and VIP guests.
On a city-wide level, using the real-time detection capability for loitering, the Vicente López security team has been able to solve cases of vandalism on public buildings.
The many car dealerships located within Vicente Lopez benefit from savVi use to counter the high level of vehicle theft in the area. In one case, the Vicente López investigations department was able to search video to quickly locate and identify the gang responsible for stealing a large commercial vehicle.
“Video analytics produce proven results in crime prevention and decision-making,” says Martin Gasulla, Undersecretary of Security at the Department of Security, Municipality of Vicente López. “Through the combination of different types of analytics, we have streamlined our camera monitoring and our preventive actions. We’ve adapted our protocols to respond more accurately to the alerts issued by the video analytics system, for immediate responses that in turn improve crime prevention.”
Check out the Milestone video on Vicente López.
Read the full case study by Agent Vi at:
https://www.agentvi.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Agent-Vi-Customer-Story-Vicente-Lopez.pdf