Railway / Metro solutions

The transportation industry has become increasingly vulnerable to safety and security risks. Public transport operators face a crucial need to protect passengers, employees, infrastructure, and assets against possible threats, while optimizing the passengers experience and ensuring operations run smoothly, now and in the future.

Challenges

Improve safety and security

keep passengers safe and the infrastructure secure

Monitor critical areas

respond quickly to potential threats and manage incidents

Support the business

increase operational efficiency and understand passenger needs

Bosch security solutions for railway and metro

Video analytics to detect unsafe crowd behavior

Unusual behavior can indicate a preliminary stage of an unsafe situation. To prevent incidents, it is important to recognize this behavior in advance and monitor the crowd or individuals concerned. Intelligent security cameras continually evaluate real-time footage, and if necessary, alert security personnel.

The cameras are equipped with built-in video analytics and can generate an alert in case something “of normal” is happening, e.g. large crowds are gathering, people are walking into the wrong direction on an escalator, crowd is moving towards a closed area or the end of the platform etc. Alarms can also trigger the cameras to automatically track an object of interest and dynamically adjust the field of view, providing visual information to the control room. Early response prevents an event from escalating.

Automated surveillance and alarm management

An operator at a station is usually managing hundreds of cameras during a shift, while permanently watching video streams. An incident can easily be missed. Also searching through recorded video to locate and evaluate events after an incident, can take hours.
By using IP cameras with analytics, incidents can be automatically detected which will help the operators with making decisions and release them from intensive video monitoring.

Intelligent cameras enable fast searches by recording metadata of objects within, entering, or leaving an area, and storing it with the video images. By defining parameters, such as unsafe behavior, over-crowding of spaces or blocked exits, operators can narrow their searches to relevant incidents enabling a much faster response.

Smart control room

Video footage contains a lot of useful data for railway or metro stations, if they are able to process it. Operators in a control room are receive hundreds of video feeds every day and can easily miss important scenes. Intelligent cameras turn data into relevant situational alerts, which are transmitted to operators’ screens.

A smart control room will collect data over a longer time. This helps to better understand the scene the operator is watching like: is this scene busy as usually or not? Or is this area going to be busy within a certain time frame?
Collecting data over time helps to understand what is happening in which area in a station like identifying hot spots with long queues.
By gaining more insights on the operations at the train or metro station, weak spots will become more clear and counter measures can be implemented.

Bosch safety solutions for railway and metro

Get the message across

There are different reasons for streaming voice messages at a railway or metro station, it could be an operational announcement like a platform change, a commercial advertisement or an evacuation. In all cases the message needs to be understood by the passengers.

Public Address (PA) solutions are available to make announcements both station-wide and within specific areas, like platforms. Active speakers cover a range up to 50 meters, while beam steering devices precisely insonify an area of just a few square meters in front of a platform.
The systems are flexible and increase/decrease sound levels in environments with loud/low ambient noise, provide control over a small and very specific area or can also address the full station if necessary.
Providing travelers with clear information on last minute changes, putts people at ease and makes them feel safe. In emergencies, automatic warnings and announcements can help defuse tense situations. A reliable, public address system is therefore essential for clear announcements and improves the passenger’s experience.

Steering crowds during emergencies

If an emergency breaks out at a station, large crowds could become hard to control. If panic arises in a crowd, the danger exponentially increases. In case of an emergency the voice alarm system sends out prerecorded messages in multiple languages, thereby helping to manage the flow of people and ensure a safe evacuation—even in noisy train or metro stations.

These threats will always occur in a certain area. In all situations, the most efficient way to evacuate is via phased evacuation. The most urgent priority areas are therefore evacuated first.

Video-based fire detection

Fire is a huge concern for railway operators from a safety point of view. This is due to the infrastructure, stations usually have high ceilings and a lot of wind from the train traffic.
By using standard fire detection methods (smoke detectors or linear heat detectors) it is very difficult to reliably detect smoke and fire at an early stage.

The AVIOTEC camera series, however, can detect fires at the source within 30 seconds. This offers a decisive time advantage that prevents greater damage from occurring. The solution’s usability is not affected by ceiling height. And AVIOTEC is based on smoke and flames detection algorithms specially developed for use in tunnels, which have been optimized in comprehensive tests in real environments. Even with low illumination, smoke and flames are detected at the earliest stage, while correctly distinguishing them from other disturbances.
Visual fire detection helps prevent loss of life, averts crowd panic, and reduces disruptions of operations.

People counting for social distancing

As the world moves towards the new normal, travelers and airport staff need to feel safe with the number of people in shared spaces. Managing passenger flow with staff has always been expensive, not to mention the extra workload. Stand-alone People Count solutions are an effective and efficient way to help navigate, and manage, crowds.

To support social distancing, cameras with built-in video analytics count the people entering or exiting an area and then update digital signs with a simple traffic light system. The camera sensors and signage can cover single entrances or sync with multi-entrance software for larger areas.

Bosch operations solutions for railway and metro

Parking management

By taking a data-driven approach, stations can improve their parking services, thereby optimizing the passenger experience and increasing their revenues.

Cameras equipped with video-analytics algorithms recognize unoccupied parking spots reliably. This data can be transferred to a service that informs passengers of available spaces. At the same time, the cameras maintain the security of vehicles in the area using surveillance, which detects such unwanted events as loitering car thieves, wrong-way driving, objects left behind, and congestion.
Operators gain valuable insights from video analytics data that easily converts to dashboards for making intelligent business decisions.

Support frequent traveler

The increasing number of passengers in public transport can cause queues at turnstiles on train or metro stations, where everybody has to swipe their boarding passes to a reader. By applying facial recognition, passengers with valid travel passes (monthly or annual tickets), can be identified, offering them access to fast-lanes without having to show their ticket.
Using facial recognition to identify frequent travelers, increases the overall capacity of the turnstiles, lower the waiting times, reduce the queues and increase passenger experience.

Tunnel and track surveillance

Unauthorized persons near the rail tracks are a major risk for railway infrastructure. As every – even a very short – interruption of the operation is causing a lot problems to the operator. Early detection of these incidents can be challenging for operators monitoring standard raw video, and they can miss important scenes. With built-in video analytics, however, metadata add sense and structure to video images.

Persons and objects can be detected in video footage, even when hiding in dark areas. Built-in infrared illuminators detect objects up to 550 meters away, and thermal images allow detection of suspects hiding, for example, in bushes. When a person approaches the tracks for example, cameras automatically follow them across the trackside to support intervention over long distances. Multiple objects can also be displayed on a map, showing their location, size, and speed to enable quick intervention. This avoids delays and minimizes costs.