Modern security solutions for a historic town

Soham Town Council worked with outdated equipment, including CCTV cameras, older servers, and limited recordings to review past incidents. Many of the cameras were poorly placed. With no proactive maintenance being done for several years, recorded material only covered a few hours of footage before being recorded over. After an incident would occur, a staff member needed to sit through hours of footage at low resolution, which took days at a time to often find nothing of value. When operators found recorded incidents, they copied the footage and sent it by hand to the proper authorities using a bulky hard drive or other physical devices. The process created delays leading to slow and often no follow-up in investigations and invariably frustration and complaint. 

As only nine of the 17 installed cameras were working, the town no longer had visibility to all public spaces along the main street. Of those working cameras, the video’s quality was low due to the cameras’ extended age. The town council decided that they needed a better way to keep their residents safe and accelerate investigations with an upgraded video surveillance solution. 

This small bustling town used an outdated CCTV system that was no longer fit for this council’s diverse needs. The new solution needed to be flexible, high-performing, and at the same time, cost-efficient since municipalities are generally confronted with shrinking budgets.

• Surveillance on all areas of their main street
• High-quality video footage
• Camera firmware and software that operators could upgrade more easily
• Searchable features for rule violation evidence
• Improved way to handle chain-of-custody in investigations
• Generous storage of video footage accessible remotely

Along with this list of needs, some customization of the product was also necessary to fulfill the optimal quality desired by Soham’s council. Ava’s flexible system and products integrated well with preexisting cameras and tools while also enhancing the possibilities of both. Ava Aware was able to pick up on distinguishable characteristics and new details to streamline police reports. It also became easier to protect the town’s regulations and investigate offenses.