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Ramla is becoming city without violence

Ramla, an Israeli town centre with a population of 65 000, is located in Israel’s shore plain between Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem and in close proximity to the Ben Gurion International Airport. Founded in 716 by Muslims, the city’s current population is a blend of cultures consisting of Jews, Muslims and Christians who have lived in the city for many generations. Ramla is the capital of the central region, one of the six regions in the state of Israel supervised by the interior ministry.

Measurable reductions desired

The city of Ramla is one of the pioneers of the Israeli government’s 'City without Violence' programme that was initiated in 2007 and includes 16 selected cities that will receive partial government funding for video surveillance projects. The City without Violence project teams the national police with the city municipality to achieve goals of confronting all types of violence on a citywide level.

Prior to implementing the programme, Ramla performed a survey to identify strategic locations around the city where video surveillance could help create a safer city environment. These areas included main road junctions, schools and recreation areas. Without an existing fibre infrastructure, however, Ramla had the challenge of building a surveillance network that would meet their demanding needs in an environment where cameras were widely distributed.

The Vigilant solution

Vigilant’s certified partner Top Sky Line, designed a solution and installed 67 highly visible, outdoor cameras mounted on poles in strategic locations. The cameras were connected to Vigilant’s NetStream 2300 video encoders. The NetStream encoders use a wireless Wi-Fi network to deliver high quality D1 video resolution to the municipality’s control centre. The control centre is manned 24/7 to enable response by authorities to events and residential calls. A Vigilant NetVR 5201 located in the control centre records and stores the high quality video for a period of 21 days.

“We were looking for a quality high-end video surveillance solution that would be capable of operating over a wireless infrastructure”, stated Kobi Winter, CEO of Top Sky Line, “Vigilant’s surveillance solution is specially designed for overcoming wireless network challenges while providing the highest video quality.”

Vigilant’s NetView control centre was installed in the city control room with multiple video streams being displayed over a video wall that consists of three LCD screens. Municipality personnel use NetView command, a touch screen map-based graphical user interface, to efficiently navigate throughout the city in order to instantly view and manage live or recorded video on the NetView control centre matrix.

“Vigilant’s end-to-end video surveillance solution has exceeded our expectations in every area,” continued Winter. “The NetView command user interface is friendly and effective and it allows the municipality operators to quickly respond to events by using the city maps and geographical perspective of the installed cameras.”

As one of the first municipalities in Israel to implement a digital video surveillance system, Ramla has seen a 15% reduction in violent crime. The city is planning to increase the video surveillance system in a second phase of the project to include megapixel cameras. UTM represents Vigilant in South Africa.

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