200204 – Badger, Bhattacharjee & Musicki – Passenger Security System for State Rail Authority of New South Wales

In late 1998 the CityRail Division of the State Rail Authority (SRA) of New South Wales embarked on the Safe Stations Program to improve the safety and security of passengers at 302 CityRail stations of the Sydney metropolitan commuter network. Improved lighting on all stations complemented the installation of Closed Circuit Television (CCTV) surveillance, with local monitoring at 220 manned Stations. The Stations were to be placed in 17 Groups. Remote monitoring was, accordingly, planned from 17 Group Remote Monitoring Locations (GRMLs) and a central security control centre (Central GRML, or CGRML); the latter had all Stations in its domain.

The Contract comprised the design, manufacture, installation, commissioning and maintenance of a CCTV, Help Point and Video Recording System. This is being delivered in two stages, to create the world’s largest integrated surveillance and security system for rail infrastructure. This paper addresses both stages.

Philips Projects, which was awarded the contract for the CCTV system in late 1998, was acquired by Tyco in mid-2000 to become Tyco Integrated Systems, who are now managing and executing the contract for Philips.

The first phase, delivered in pre-Olympic and post-Olympic stages, was the provision of a networked system for video surveillance, digital video recording and remote public address, over a very large, geographically-distributed collection of sites; these comprised all Stations plus selected car parks and bus interchanges.

This system proved critical for the efficient management of rail transportation services during the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. In addition to keeping a watchful eye over passenger safety, it allows CityRail to monitor train movements, crowd behaviour and passenger load variations. During the Games, trains could be despatched at short notice to clear passengers from busy Stations as required, defusing potentially volatile situations before they could arise.

This system was utilised not only by CityRail, but also by the personnel at the Roads and Transport Authority Transport Management Centre (TMC), the nervecentre for traffic flow monitoring. To cater for these operations, the TMC, along with the SRA Incident Management Centre (IMC) and Rail Coordination Centre (RCC) – these are known as additional CGRMLs – were fitted out to provide functionality similar to that being provided at the CGRML.

During subsequent months, the system has proved invaluable for allowing replay of recordings of incidents involving the movements and safety of passengers and rolling stock.