Taipei City Station Front Metro Mall

"After adopting the surveillance solution provided by Synology, we have fundamentally solved all the problems we had with a traditional system. Aside from allowing us to record stably, it also saves us a lot of time pulling out footage, as our surveillance officers are required to do so daily. Moreover, Surveillance Station counts and tracks people flow, allowing us to analyze the data and bring in more revenue."

Mr. Wang, Chin-Hsiang, Board Chairman, Taipei City Station Front Metro Mall Site Utilization Cooperative

The Company

Founded in 2004 in the heart of Taipei City, Station Front Metro Mall lies in one of the most traveled paths in Taipei Main Station. With 52 stores, 6 halls, and 50 smaller booths, it hosts all kinds of charity and business activities, providing an excellent space for recreation and shopping. Considering the safety of those who pass through every day, 122 IP cameras are now deployed in Station Front Metro Mall to watch over the customers and passersby.

The Challenge

Formerly using traditional analog cameras with digital video recorders (DVRs), the 0.3-megapixel resolution offers little help in identification during the playback of an incident. In search of a single event, the system requires someone to sit through the entire footage in person. The searching process not only wastes a lot of time but also prone to human negligence. Secondly, the hardware maintenance for an analog system is just too troublesome. If a camera is offline or showing static noise, one would have to go over all of the wires to find out what's malfunctioning. Since all of the analog cameras need to be physically connected to a DVR device, sorting through bunches of cables would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. Furthermore, since incorporating more cameras means plugging in more cables to the server, it's challenging to increase the number of cameras without further consideration. The storage space is also limited by the hard disk capacity and unlikely to be expandable.

The Solution

The most prominent obstacle that Station Front Metro Mall faced was with the DVR surveillance structure. Excellent scalability, friendly user interface, and easy management are also required features. After careful considerations, Synology Surveillance Station is the one that came out on top. Upgraded from 4 DVR recording servers and 64 analog cameras, the new deployment includes 4 recording servers, 122 IP cameras, and 4 Synology VisualStation video decoders. A TV wall is also set up in the disaster prevention center to show what's happening when it's happening.

Other than that, Synology Deep Learning NVR DVA3219 is deployed at the main entrances of the mall to count the people flow. Based on the automated people flow report provided, one can make better managerial decisions such as estimating billboard fees and changing guard patrol schedules. Synology's smart surveillance solution successfully solved the fundamental problems with the DVR system, which also provides more features than just recording and playback. More importantly, with its video analysis feature, it provides actionable insights for the management team to make better decisions.

The Benefits

Synology Centralized Management System comes with excellent scalability

At the moment, there are 4 surveillance servers in Station Front Metro Mall. The Centralized Management System (CMS) makes it possible to monitor the surveillance feeds recorded in different locations from one console. When an alarm is triggered, without logging in to the other servers, you can review all of the notifications by logging into only the host server. This feature significantly increases surveillance efficiency and enables people to respond promptly.

Surveillance Station offers flexible license policy for organizations to purchase enough licenses for their security cameras according to their needs. Compatible with most surveillance camera brands, one can choose freely when it comes to camera selection and not limited by certain brands. As for storage scalability, Surveillance Station supports online storage expansion, ensuring an uninterrupted surveillance service even during the expansion.

A surveillance system that's easy to expand and maintain

Since the Synology surveillance management system uses an IP structure, adding new cameras is as simple as attaching an Ethernet cable from the nearest switch. When a camera gets offline, Surveillance Station will send out a notification and pointing it out on a map. This allows the emergency operations personnel to easily monitor the cameras in the entire area, knowing exactly when and where a camera is not functioning. Accompanied by POE (Power over Ethernet) switch, fixing and maintaining the malfunctioning cameras can be done in a short time.

Intelligent analytics and searching feature allows personnel to find footage quickly

Since countless people are going through Station Front Metro Mall every day while all kinds of activities are being held, deploying all-rounded protection for the entire area is a must. To make sure that all the grounds are covered, there are cameras in almost every aisle to monitor everything in this mall. Offered in Surveillance Station, the intelligent searching feature allows the surveillance personnel to quickly locate the incidents in each area. The staff can instantly see the events from the search results through simple configurations, finding what they need without combing through the entire record manually.

Managers make better decisions with the people counting feature

The people counting feature makes it easy to gather and analyze information for the long run. Better managerial decisions are made as the deep-learning algorithm provides invaluable help with its analysis. For instance, one can assign more officers for security patrol during busy hours, charge more for ads shown at specific place and time, or calculate the efficiency of each store for future reference. Without DVA3219, it wouldn't be possible to have the completed report for making sound and scientific business decisions.

Recommended Models

  • DVA3219
  • DS218+
  • DS3018xs
  • VS360HD
  • VS960HD

Recommended Features

  • Synology Centralized Management System comes with excellent scalability
  • A surveillance system that's easy to expand and maintain
  • Intelligent analytics and searching feature
  • Value-added people counting feature
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