In line with security

By: Santiago Jaramillo H.

The Integral Center for Attention and Coordination of Citizen Security of the State of Bolívar (CIACSC), also known as Emergencias Bolívar 1-7-1, was born as a modernization project for this Venezuelan state, in order to innovate the police communications radio system and integrate citizen attention into a single agency, that is, establish an integrated and multipurpose care to act in cases of emergencies.

This system, which is a benchmark in Venezuela, currently integrates the services of the Bolivar State Police, Land Transit, Municipal Police, National Guard, Fifth Jungle Infantry Division, CICPC (Scientific, Criminal and Criminalistic Investigations Corps), DISIP (Directorate of Intelligence and Prevention Services), DIM (Military Intelligence Directorate), Firefighters and, additionally, provides road aid services (tolls).

Precisely the case study that VENTAS DE SEGURIDAD brings for you in this edition has to do with the modernization of the systems that were implemented in this important project, which had the baton of the Corpdata C.A. Group.

Engineer Fernando Castellano Azócar, corporate project manager at Beyond Tech Comm C.A., was our guest to expand on the topic further. In that sense, Castellano clarified that for this work the firms Winsted (furniture), Proxim (wireless links), Planar (large-scale visualization system, VideoWall), Pelco (cameras and video recording system), DIS (room sound system and infrared audio), Huawei (data system, switch, and video conference system), APC (energy system) intervened. Genesal (power plant) and Honneywell (access control and fire detection system).

Likewise, an interdisciplinary group of professionals was in charge of the work, as a leading engineer Christian Cooper acted, electronic security was guided by Enzo Valles and large-scale video had the tutelage of Hugo Castillo.

The construction of the CIACSC was completed in November 2008, the month in which the installed technological systems were presented, but its operations officially began on May 12, 2009.

Project Details
The infrastructure of the CIACSC is approximately 520 square meters, is located at the headquarters of the Emergency Service, and there were installed nine technological systems to strengthen the process of attending to the emergency call.

The nine technological systems are visualization, closed circuit television (CCTV), digital telephony Voice/IP, satellite fleet management, call management, videoconferencing, call queue control, servers and internal security that includes fire control, access control and backup of electrical energy.

As Fernando Castellano acknowledges, "the security forces monitor strategic points of the city through this system, which is the largest and most modern display set in the country. The display screen is five meters high by seven meters wide, and from it different streets and avenues of Ciudad Guayana are monitored. In total there are 15 screens of 85 inches Planar brand, in an arrangement of five by three that form a visual wall, where you can associate one or several simultaneous images, observing and recording what happened up to a resolution of 5,120 by 2,304 pixels, "he said.

According to the engineer Castellano, since its activation last May, more than 295,130 emergency calls have been received in the Integral Center for Attention and Coordination of Citizen Security. Attending a total of 21,543 cases assisted by the different security agencies of the Bolivar State.

For its part, the Pre-hospital Medical Care Service has assisted 5,335 calls, of which 3,025 were pre-hospital medical care at the site of the emergency, 1,124 medical transfers, 558 teleconsultations and 628 cases of emergencies reported via 1-7-1.

Operation of the system
Before developing this project, as Castellano relates, emergency calls to 1-7-1 were answered in another headquarters, with limited space, without large-scale visualization capacity and through an analog telephone exchange. In this context, operators had to ask the person making the call for their data, that is, their telephone number and manually transcribe it into the emergency registration system.

The current system captures the caller ID of the caller and transcribes it directly to the database without operator intervention saving time and avoiding transcription errors.

Through the display screens you can see the queue system that reflects how many 1-7-1 telephone operators are connected with name and surname, when they are attending an emergency or not, and how many calls the operator has received.

The Voice/IP technology or incoming number used in the reception of emergency calls, reflects on the computer the telephone number of the user who is registered and is part of the database to reduce the time of attention of the call, the protocol of questions and the time in which the operator is busy.

This queuing system works with the premise of "first in first out", supporting up to 70 people waiting in queue and distributing the calls received equitably among the 14 workstations located in the CIACSC operators' room.

Complete integration
As a fact to highlight, the representative of Beyond Tech Comm C.A. indicates that with this project "a perfect integration of all systems was achieved through the use of standard protocols for video transmission and support in the transmission of data through IP, in addition to the versatility provided by the Planar video processing system, which allows you to choose between DVI, RGB, Coaxial, Super Video inputs, among others".

Likewise, Castellano ponders that "in this way, you can see in the visualization system the images from any source, including local or remote cameras, the statistics of the telephone exchange, television channels, satellite vehicle location system, the videoconferencing system or any other analog or digital video source. In the same way, each of the operators can independently tune one of the 32 channels of the infrared audio system and conference DIS (Danish Interpretation Systems), among these sources are the trunked communication systems of the different security agencies of the city, television channels, radio stations, among others, "emphasized our guest.

In the same way, González emphasizes that Winsted furniture has the appropriate ventilation for the equipment, as well as the material (steel) to correctly locate them without suffering any type of damage. Also the representative of the company emphasizes the quality and durability of the materials used.

"This project was initiated through Beyond Tech Comm, who told us what they wanted to do in the 1-7-1 Bolivar, where it would be monitored through 14 security posts. We as Winsted, the console brand for Beyond Tech Comm, put together the design using software and send it to them. Later, with the help of engineer Fernando Castellano (corporate project manager of Beyond Tech Comm), the last details were made.

On the other hand, González emphasizes that when this type of projects are advanced, it is better to go to expert hands and not to the 'carpentry' in order to obtain a useful, ergonomic furniture manufactured for the required purpose.

"One of the important points that the client told us (1-7-1 Bolivar), where the satisfaction was evident, was that no cable is seen because of the way the consoles were located, in addition to the general appearance of the room. This is because Winsted consoles are prepared for handling hidden cables and to provide a great appearance," he said.

Another aspect to highlight in this type of furniture, which as indicated by Noel González are modular, is the ease of expansion in case it is required in the future by the client and, in addition, the delivery time, which according to the requirements can be on average three or four weeks.