Today’s Guest Entry is by Erick Slabaugh, CEO of ABSCO Alarms.
Parking Garage Security
I was introduced to Erick earlier this year. Besides his obvious passion for developing the best security solutions for his clients, who include the US Navy and Washington State Ferries, just to mention a couple, I was intrigued by the cutting edge technology that is now available especially as it pertains to parking garage security.
Technology that enables real time interaction versus the general paradigm of “post even analysis”
Erick describes a system that his current clients, to include private universities and companies, are implementing:
Let’s contrast two parking garages equipped with similar systems at similar cost, but one lacking the features Larry has been alluding to.
Parking garage “A”
This building has a total of 8 emergency phones and 20 cameras spread around the garage area.
Someone is walking to their car and realizes they need help. They run to the emergency phone and an operator answers the distress call. On this system the operator has no quick way of pulling up cameras in the area because they are wired to two separate systems.
The operator can only assure the person on the phone that help is being dispatched and then do little more than listen in.
Parking garage “B”
This garage has the same number of phones and cameras as parking “A”
The difference is the two systems are integrated so that if an emergency call comes in the associated cameras viewing the phone and the adjacent area come up immediately on a “hot screen” at the monitoring station.
The operator has visual and audible real time awareness of the situation and given the features of this cutting edge system the operator is able to “intervene or interact” as it were.
By this I mean that the operator is able to broadcast over a speaker nearby something to this effect: You wearing the denim jacket and red ball cap, you are being recorded and watched and police are on their way. You had best leave immediately.
The cost difference of these two systems is most often a 15-20% delta. Yet one provides immediate aid while the other provides post event analysis in situations where seconds count and deterrence or intervention of any type is critical.
Should you have any questions about a particular electronic security issue that you would like to discuss please feel free to email Erick at ewslabaugh@abscoalarms.com