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Fibre port surveillance

600 cameras managed from central control room.

The port of Marseille offers trade links to 400 ports around the world. Its geographical position on the Mediterranean Sea and the multiple cargo distribution channels available to it (river, rail, road, pipeline) have maintained the port’s importance as a natural gateway to Europe.

It incorporates two harbours; the 400 hectare East Harbour which sits within the city of Marseille and the West Harbour located 70 kilometres from Marseille at Fos, on a 10 000 hectare site. Port activity generates 41 300 jobs in total, including those of the 1500-strong workforce within the Port Authority.

The security and works authority is the department responsible for the maintenance of the port’s security infrastructure, among other things. In order to effectively secure the large area under its control, the security department invested heavily in: camera domes, access control, alarms and fire detection system.

However, having installed these diverse systems, one significant challenge remained: to transfer data from over 600 cameras over long distances to the central control room. As the security and works authority had already had several successful experiences of using UTC Fire & Security’s fibre transmission products, the choice of system provider seemed self-evident.

The Port of Marseille has used UTC Fire & Security fibre-optic transceivers from the very first moment they installed security cameras at the site. Several units, installed over 10 years ago, are still working without interruption today. After installing over 500 transceivers throughout the port area, the site is now fully equipped with a large network of fibres, connecting every quay and storage zone together with the different control rooms around the site.

The port’s controllers and security guards are able to view live video footage from up to six kilometres away in real-time on their monitor displays.

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