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CCTV in stadia

Surveillance in stadia is as old as the first stadium ever built. One can imagine the guards in the Colosseum in Rome watching the spectators for signs of bad behaviour to quell a riot before it had time to develop or facing the crowd to spot a potential threat to the life of their Caesar. In modern day stadia the camera has taken over this function. However, a modern digital surveillance system can do much more - to the point of even calculating the work rate of your star player in a vital football match.

Modern surveillance technology has long since moved out of its original intended usage to become a powerful management tool, using the most important type of information as input - the visual image.

Stadium security

Much has been said about the application of face recognition to assist in the identification of specific unsavoury individuals with a known history of stadium violence. There are some very advanced systems in use in the UK to identify football hooligans and to prevent them entry to stadia. However, the search database is quite small and these systems are extremely pricey.

The most telling problem faced by these systems is the fact that the human face is easy to disguise as there are too many variables to the recognition algorithm, making it a very unreliable manner of identification by a crowd scanning system. To be effective you need the human eye combined with intuition and pattern recognition to make a positive ID in such circumstances. However, using technology to empower surveillance operators to make the correct identification can enhance these abilities.

The surveillance systems can be coupled with access control based on smartcards used in loyalty programs to enhance the sport fan's experience. These could be used to speed up bookings over the Internet and to identify the user by comparing the stored facial image with that of the bearer entering the stadium. This could help to eliminate a lot of queuing or to admit persons to reserved areas such as the executive suites or main stand.

Surveillance technology can also be used in crowd control to alert officials of potential problem areas. The ability to use two-way communication to specific cameras can allow officials to not only audibly assess a situation but also to address a specific portion of the crowd to prevent a possible stadium tragedy, the likes of which occur every year in a number of stadia all over the world, costing many lives and horrific injuries.

Incident management

With the power of the computer being used in surveillance technology, a number of functions can make the stadium manager's life a lot easier. One being the management of incidents and the other being the 'banned persons' list.

Modern CCTV caters for electronic incident management systems that easily allows for the incident to be captured electronically, the visual and audio footage from a number of cameras to be linked to the incident and the whole package to be stored on off-line media such as compact disks or flash memory that can be reviewed anywhere at a later date and can even be used in court as evidence.

Modern surveillance technology can constantly display a list of banned persons for quick reference by the surveillance operators. If a suspicious person is seen on the system, the operator can do a quick search through the list, identify a possible match and replay the previous images of the person under surveillance, thereby confirming identification patterns such as facial features, clothing, walking and much more.

Number plate recognition can be used to allow entrance to authorised vehicles into the car park, thereby preventing unnecessary queuing at the vehicle access gates.

Performance enhancement

With sport most probably being the biggest money-spinner in business today, it is of the utmost importance to use every tool available to enhance team performance. Spatial positioning in critical moves, work rate calculations, defensive and offensive pattern recognition in the opposition to determine effective counters for planned moves are critical if you want your team to succeed in modern team sports.

Correctly positioned cameras can relay a wealth of information to coaching staff, both whilst the game is being played or to analyse past performances.

The coach can also request specific players to be followed for a period to record every move. This could be from more than one angle. Digitally the images can be combined on one screen to show, for instance, errors in spatial positioning, thereby providing for a gap to be exploited or perhaps to point out a potential defensive lapse from a set play that could result in a score.

The data could also be used to determine individual and team work rates, eg, tackles made or missed, distances covered and much more.

Conclusion

The modern sport stadium is a place where large groups of fans go on a regular basis to support their team and to enjoy the experience. However, because of human nature there will always be those that will try to make mischief where crowds gather. CCTV and modern surveillance techniques can be used to enhance the experience in a number of ways as indicated above, even by helping your team to win.

To find out how modern technology can enhance the management of stadia, create a wish list and contact a CCTV supplier to see how much of your wish list can be accommodated. You might be in for a surprise to see how far CCTV has come over the last decade.

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