Welsh bus operator Cardiff Bus is fighting fraudulent insurance claims with the installation of wireless CCTV systems on its expanding fleet.
Having already installed CCTV surveillance cameras on its existing 220 vehicles in its fleet, Cardiff Bus has ordered additional units to be fitted on 30 new vehicles that will be delivered before the end of 2013.
Operating in the Welsh city of Cardiff, the bus company has a large fleet of vehicle servicing as many as 100,000 passengers daily and is vulnerable to problems with anti-social behaviour as well as costly fraudulent insurance claims. Both problems resulted in the decision some time ago to install surveillance equipment to protect staff and passengers and cut down on fraud.
The company has ordered a further 20 Mercedes-Benz Citaro vehicles and 10 ADL E200 buses which will be delivered during November and December this year, each of which will have cameras and Timespace V400 DVR (Digital Video Recorder) units fitted at the factory.
Supplied by Synectics Mobile Systems, the WLAN-enabled CCTV cameras and recording systems have long recording times and can support up to 16 cameras per unit. The in-vehicle surveillance system performs daily health checks and provides status reports to the Cardiff Bus office so that engineers can see if there are any faults on the system remotely.
Video footage can also be viewed remotely and downloaded across the wireless network for central storage and analysis. As such, it isn’t necessary to attend each vehicle in order to recover recording material, everything can be done remotely.
Commenting on the installation of the CCTV surveillance cameras on his fleet of buses, Cardiff Bus’ engineering director, Gareth Mole explained that such systems are vital for operations and for the protection of drivers and passengers against anti-social behaviour and fraudulent injury claims.