From incredible skiing to a continuous hosting of musical festivals and sports competitions, the town of Vail is an ideal vacation spot from summer to winter. Because of this, the town is tasked with handling a flood of visitors year round, which poses several challenges for the town’s IT department, which needs to support agencies’ public safety efforts. Whether it is managing the constant flow of traffic or keeping its visitors and residents safe, the town of Vail certainly had its work cut out for them.
Slippery Slope of Security Concerns
Safety is a top priority when it comes to managing large numbers of visitors. To handle these security concerns, the town identified key areas thorough Vail that would benefit from having network cameras on site. In addition to the security benefit they bring, the cameras are also useful in monitoring and controlling traffic as well as streaming projects. From there, the IT department chose a variety of technology and hardware partners to piece together the highest performing and most efficient solution possible that would not give them hiccups in the middle of a busy day. The town enlisted the help of a local integrator to help with the installation and to get each of their cameras on the network quickly.
Among the close to 160 cameras across town, the most popular camera deployed was the Q6045-E PTZ Dome Network Camera from Axis, used to capture numerous different scenes. “We love those PTZ domes,” said Ron Braden, director of the IT Department in the town of Vail. “We have those for our traffic cameras, also covering the Interstate, parking lots and taxi lanes.” The town can now capture the surrounding scenes off of the Milestone VMS platform.
With the cameras in place, the town faced yet another challenge — making sure the town’s network could handle the bandwidth for transferring video data. Wireless connectivity is a crucial component to the town’s network. Through Aspen Wireless and Ruckus Wireless, the town successfully overcame jammed airwaves for the needs of first responders, volunteers and town officials. This involved applying Siklu wireless radios to enable gigabit wireless signals.
Now, in the shopping district in town, the police can use the footage captured by those surveillance cameras for investigative purposes and work actively to address any incidents. One of the major concerns is theft of skis, clothes and more from many of the retail stores. “Every year it seems somebody or some group come to town trying to scam retailers and steal clothing, jewelry and everything else,” Braden said. “The Axis cameras are then instrumental in identifying those individuals. During busy times, police use the footage almost daily.”
Security for Every Season
In addition to these everyday challenges, the town of Vail is home to many special events throughout the summer, and with that comes a need for a specialized event-based security plan.
For special events in two of the pedestrian villages, the town applies the Aimetis People Counter analytics on an Axis P3367-VE Network Camera to track flow patterns that can help with future planning. “It is not uncommon to see 17 to 23 thousand in one location for a special occasion like an award ceremony or World Cup races,” Braden said.
Additionally, the town utilizes the timelapse offering from HD Relay to monitor progress on construction projects, especially on highways, as well as the streaming of multiple cameras from its municipal website. They also live stream three of its Axis cameras through HD Relay. This is consistently the most clicked link on their website. At any time of day, you can check out what is going on around town in real-time, a helpful feature for those trying to plan out their trip.
A High-Tech Town
Today, the town of Vail is fully transitioned from an analog system to one packed with IP cameras making life a little easier for the IT department. The integration of these cameras has enabled the local police department to use high-quality footage in pursuing investigations, helping to make the town a little safer. They have also found many uses of these systems outside of general security, including live streaming, time-lapse creation and using the Aimetis People Counter. These features are even helping the town plan for future events.
The town continues to plan for growth in their reactive security measures. “We’re always growing, always adding cameras,” Braden concluded. “We obviously love IP and moved all of our cameras away from the old analog system and continue to find new uses for them.”
Steve Darragh is the business area director, South Central, for Axis Communications where he is responsible for the management of sales, marketing, engineering, training and operations. He is PSP certified and specializes in IP video.
