European Police Station Boosts Control Center Efficiency with KVM Matrix Switching System

Background

A renowned European Police Department consisted of 15 local police stations and employed over 14,000 front-line policing staff working hard to protect citizens and ensure law and order was maintained. Each police station had a dedicated control center which handled day-to-day operations and responded to both local and regional emergency calls.

Challenge

One of the larger district stations housed a main control center and provided first response for over 400 emergency and 600 non-emergency calls on a daily basis. Constantly monitoring this amount of incoming traffic was proving to be quite a challenge, so the Department approached Black Box to provide a video wall and a proprietary (non-IP) KVM solution which would help police staff determine priority calls, share information efficiently and improve reaction time to incoming alerts.

As the pilot site for the rest of the district, the solution had to utilise existing cabling and also be easily replicated in the other police stations. Ease of operation was also an important factor so that users would not have to learn a new setup each time they transfer from one police station to another.

Solution

During the first phase of the project a mini replica of a police control center was set up to test and simulate different scenarios and find the right technology for the police station’s needs. This resulted in a solution that combined a NEC 55“ LED Video wall with a Black Box DKM FX KVM Matrix and an additional remote control touch panel. The KVM Matrix provides flexible and super-fast crosspoint switching of Full HD video signals and peripheral control signals. Within the police station the installed solution consists of 8 control desks, each with a video wall of 4 x 27” screens with built-in speakers, one set of keyboard and mouse, and one ControlBridge touch panel. Video signals are transmitted via HDMI and two satellite receivers are attached to the KVM matrix so staff can monitor TV news at their desks.

Results

Having adopted Black Box’s solution, the police control center is now able to prioritize incoming calls by color code and different acoustic signals, which provide a better understanding of the type of incident and the response needed.

Furthermore they also save time with minor systematic duties, such as opening and closing doors and gates remotely by using Black Box’s remote control touch panel.

The solution has enabled the police department to react more effectively when responding to disturbances of public safety. They are now rolling out the solution to the other stations within the region.