printer friendly version

Panoramic views at Shell

Shell South Africa is a wholly owned Shell subsidiary company. The South African company manages the activities of several affiliates in southern Africa.

Shell is one of the major oil companies in South Africa with extensive marketing and refining assets and a product portfolio that comprises a full range of fuels, lubricants, bitumen, solvents and other chemicals. It has a strong position in the southern African petrol, automotive diesel sectors. It holds a 17,8% market share with over 800 retail sites distributed throughout the region including sites with convenience stores and several highway site locations. One of Shell’s latest revamped retail locations is the petrol service station in Kensington, Johannesburg.

Successful planning and construction of a new petrol station involves the cost efficiency of the labour, the structural engineering of the facility, and the safety and security of patrons and employees. With a high probability of incidents in such a heavily trafficked venue, video surveillance is a necessity to accurately monitor daily activities for identification purposes in the event of an incident.

These criteria applied when developing the revamp concept for Shell petrol service station in suburban Johannesburg. The contracting company, together with a South African systems integrator, sought out the most comprehensive and cost-effective security video surveillance solution for the new Shell petrol location.

Megapixel solution

Over the exterior of the new Shell petrol service station are three Arecont Vision’s 180-degree panoramic view cameras, a 360 degree panoramic view camera keeps watch over all activities inside the store. The cameras are strategically positioned to offer panoramic views providing the ability to digitally zoom in for a close-up of specific areas of the larger image – such as a person’s face or a licence plate number. An additional AV2100 2 megapixel camera is used to monitor activities at the store’s cash registers.

The cameras outside the Shell station in Kensington are 8-megapixel, 180-degree panoramic IP network cameras enclosed in 6-inch domes. Each uses four 2-megapixel sensors and provides up to 6400 x 1200 resolution at 22 frames per second (fps). Light sensitivity is 0,2 lux at F2.0, and the cameras provide image cropping and up to four regions of interest. The cameras feature Arecont Vision’s megavideo technology, and processes billions of operations per second.

The 360-degree panoramic view megapixel camera’s capabilities are similar to the 180-degree panoramic model, except that its eight total megapixels (four 2 megapixel sensors) in a 6-inch dome provide 360-degree coverage. The camera also provides light sensitivity of 0,2 lux at F2.0, and image cropping with up to four regions-of-interest. The 2-megapixel camera deployed at the cash registers employs a 0,5-inch CMOS sensor to provide 1600 x 1200 resolution video at 24 fps, with light sensitivity of 0,1 lux at F1.4. Other features include forensic zooming on archived video, region-of-interest, image cropping and motion detection.

All the cameras are networked to a digital video recorder (DVR) with 6 terabytes of storage, supplied by Envision Surveillance. Wireless transmission of digital images at the station is facilitated by a Nanostation Ethernet Wireless Transmitter from Miro Distribution. The system is monitored locally from a management office on-site.

These cameras picture quality on recorded video is the same as live video providing detailed forensic evidence for presentation in court when required. The panoramic cameras also provide an overall view of the Kensington station that is useful as a management tool for end-user.

The benefit for Shell in Kensington is superior imaging performance, extended facility coverage capabilities and overall ROI. The system has already proven its value by providing positive identification in a situation involving employee pilferage and to positively identify a drunk driver to authorities.

“The Shell Petrol Kensington site represents a new trend in systems design employing megapixel cameras over wireless IP,” said Ethan Maxon, Middle East & Africa regional sales manager of Arecont Vision. “We believe the implantation of this system configuration will be the model for similar installations in the future.”

Share this article:

Further reading: