The Metro Mall in Ankara, Turkey, is one of the busiest entertainment and business centres in the capital, and the site covers nearly 220,000 square metres, while the nearby metro station sees a footfall of more than 300,000 commuters every day.

Given the busy nature and complexity of the location, the security of shoppers and workers is a top priority – but it’s also a challenge. “We knew well before it opened that the Metro Mall was bound to become a hotspot for shoppers and commuters, and that security would be a challenge,” says Bahri Bercin, the Metro Mall Manager. “We needed a solution that could cope with this complexity, and which we could rely on.”

Hikvision began the project by working with Meriç Technology ltd. to carry out a site survey. “Being such a complex and busy site, we needed to ensure we had enough cameras to offer comprehensive security,” says Yunus Bölükbaş, the Pre-sales Engineer at Hikvision Turkey.

500 cameras

The CCTV solution comprises more than 500 cameras located both inside the mall, the car parks and around the perimeter. For security inside the mall, Hikvision recommended its 2MP vari-focal IR bullet cameras mounted to the walls, and vandal-proof network dome cameras mounted on the ceiling, assisting the security team with situational awareness at all times.

For outdoors Hikvision network IR PTZ dome cameras were installed around the perimeter of the mall, for a comprehensive view of the mall’s exterior, while their 20x optical zoom enables the security team to inspect potential threats in very close detail.

Hikvision also installed access control panels and Mifare card readers, to enable security personnel and other authorised mall staff to gain secure card-based access to restricted areas. The whole solution was connected to Hikvision network video recorders, to support all processing and analysis of the recordings at the mall’s security control centre.

Future potential

“It’s definitely making a real difference,” says Hüseyin Gencer, the Metro Mall technical manager of the project. “The solution is helping us protecting the mall’s customers much more effectively, and providing reliable evidence for investigation of security incidents, which exactly what we had hoped for.”

The access control panels are also helping to secure the restricted areas of the mall. “We can give each member of staff access to the parts of the mall that are relevant for their work. We are also able to see where everyone is at all times.” adds Hüseyin Gencer. “Also, integration between the Hikvision CCTV and Mavili fire Alarm systems has helped us improve our low voltage system management operations”.

The security team is now planning to expand its system to the nearby residential area, which comprises five buildings, each 30 storeys high. Hikvision also plans to install the iVMS-5200E Centralized Management System and integrate it with the mall’s third party alarm system, so that the Metro Mall team can manage video streams, access control devices and its fire alarms from a single place.

Hüseyin Gencer is very happy with the technology and how the project was run, “We want to thank the whole Hikvision for their efforts during pre-sales and delivery support. And we are planning to expand the security system to the nearby residential area.”