Sydney Ferries Wharf Security System - 209 video cameras, 45 two-way hands-free intercoms and Public address and two control rooms over a free to air spread spectrum network covering 600 square km of Sydney

In June of 2000, the NSW State Transit Authority began the CCTV Passenger Safety Project for ferry operations. This contract was awarded to Chubb-Sontec who implemented a Trantek integrated security solution. In order to provide enhanced security, crowd control and improved operations management, a network of video cameras was installed at every one of the 45 ferry wharves. Every wharf along the Parramatta river, from Parramatta to Sydney Harbour and to Manly, is equipped with up to 16 video cameras to enable the monitoring of all aspects of operations and movement, as well as a public address system, a passenger information intercom and a duress help facility that places the user in voice communication to a security room officer.

The facility has two control rooms. The Sydney Ferries operation control room manages all the operational aspects, with passenger support, public address and two-way hands-free voice communications to a customer information service. The second control room, located at a Chubb Security control room in Ashfield some 10 km away from the Circular Quay operations centre, takes care of all intrusion and tamper alarms and responds to the duress alarms from passengers. A security officer is automatically alerted to duress alarms and can have a two-way hands-free conversation with a passenger while observing the scene on a live video monitor.

The security system operates over an IP network, which apart from a fibre backbone linking the main Sydney Ferries control room and the 5 Circular Quay wharves, is fully wireless. It is in fact the largest government owned spread spectrum network in Australia. The network has 45 spread spectrum wireless links operating over distances ranging up to 10 km including 13 repeater sites.

Live video can be accessed simultaneously from any of the two control rooms. Public Address announcements can be made from either control room to an individual wharf or to the whole network at once. The video streaming used is H.261 compression and the audio units use special audio processing to cancel background noise and provide clear speech to control rooms. The control rooms include multi-screen workstations integrating all operator facilities, including a drag and drop GUI for the virtual video switcher, voice communications, PA and digital video recording facilities.

Trantek performed the IP network design, software engineering, configuration of the networking equipment, supply and configuration of video encoding and voice over IP equipment, installation of the control rooms and commissioning of the integrated system.