Ciaran Hayes, Director of Services, Galway City Council says: “We’ll be using this system for a whole range of different purposes, the main one being to keep traffic moving around the city. Because Galway has been so successful, we’ve had a threefold increase in car ownership in the city, and that obviously brings its own stresses and strains in a city where we have a medieval street pattern and network. This video system gives us the capacity to be able to service the city, to make sure that the volumes of vehicles that we have traversing the city on a daily basis can do so as efficiently as possible.”

“The system also gives us the opportunity to service the main industrial areas, particularly to the east of the city where we have thousands of cars coming and going daily. This allows us to gather data which we never had before: on certain routes, for example, we know now that there’s a car every three seconds, which is a phenomenal amount of traffic. Now we can plan for the future and that particular route itself,” adds Hayes.

In the Galway City Council control room, Milestone Xprotect Smart Client manages display of all cameras across a large video wall, including pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) control and zoom for detailed views of live and recorded video. In addition Milestone Mobile has proved effective for supporting staff using tablets and smartphones.

The open platform of Milestone Xprotect video software also enabled integration with Omnia traffic management software to control traffic lights and message boards city-wide.

“With all the lights linked to the system, we are able to prioritise certain routes to make sure that the main ones get priority traffic, both in the early morning and the evening rush hours,” continues Hayes. “We have very good messaging signs and we’re able to use those to provide information to the general public. For example, if we have an incident where there’s an accident, an oil spill or whatever, we’re able to put advance warning signs out to the traveling public.”

“We will also be building on real-time passenger information for those who are using public transport. It’s about providing information to the public itself,” he concludes.

The video solution was installed by Ocean Security, an Advanced and Professional Certified Milestone Partner, through GVD/Making IP Easy, a Milestone Advanced Certified Distributor and recent winner of the Milestone UK & Ireland Trainer of the Year award. As a value added distributor of IP technology, GVD specialises in server design and build for Milestone VMS solutions.