NS (Nederlandse Spoorwegen), the Dutch rail authority, is one of the world’s busiest rail systems with 25,000 employees operating over one million passenger journeys every day. NS is currently operating over 385 full service rail stations throughout the Netherlands and running approximately 5,000 train journeys every day. To protect so many stations, it was neither practical nor cost effective to locate security video monitoring staff at every station and so a centralized remote monitoring system was developed.

A nationwide fiber network had already been put in place in parallel to the rail network and so an IP video solution was the obvious choice for video surveillance. NS employed local consultant Movares Nederland B.V. to source the best IP solution. Following a comprehensive evaluation IndigoVision’s IP Video technology was chosen for its video, low video latency and future-proof architecture. It was important that the operators could not tell the difference between IndigoVision’s digital video and equivalent analog images. Low video latency also ensured effective camera PTZ control, even across the large distances between the remote monitoring centre and the stations. NS were keen to embrace future technologies such as analytics so future-proofing was also an important requirement.

Over a period of 18 months over 200 of IndigoVision’s 8000 transmitter/receiver modules were installed on 12 stations around the network, with the largest single installation of 96 cameras. Over the coming years the system will be expanded to accommodate more and more stations. Each 8000 unit was installed with a camera in a special outdoor housing to provide a weatherproof, vandal deterrent IP camera package. The 8000s convert the analog camera feed to DVD-quality digital video for transmission over the 100Mb/s Ethernet fiber network. Data from the remote monitoring centre is also decoded by the 8000 for local PTZ control.