Technology At The Ports
May 1, 2008 12:00 PM, Larry Anderson Stephanie Silk Michael Fickes Rafi Bhonker
The Port of Richmond is located where shipyards supported the war effort in the 1940s, on the southern coast of Richmond, Calif., nine miles from the Golden Gate Bridge on the east shore of San Francisco Bay. The port, which has 32 miles of shoreline, specializes in non-containerized goods — including import of Kia and Hyundai automobiles and liquid bulk shipments — and has the third largest volume of tonnage among California ports. The port has 15 terminals, five owned by the city and 10 privately owned.
“All the ports at the federal and state level are working with the Department of Homeland Security to make seaports safer and less vulnerable to acts of terrorism,” says Jim Matzorkis, executive director, Port of Richmond. “This is a positive first step.”
Designed and integrated by ADT Security Services, Boca Raton, Fla., the video system at the Port of Richmond includes 64 fixed and 18 pan/tilt/zoom (PTZ) day-night digital cameras supplied by Axis Communications, Lund, Sweden. They are protected by IP-66-rated environmental housings from Dotworkz Systems, San Diego. The cameras provide dual simultaneous video streams — the less-compressed MJPEG for video analytics and the more-compressed MPEG-4 for storage. The cameras are connected using a wireless Mesh network of 31 nodes using radio transmission provided by BelAir Networks, Kanata, Ontario. An AW Networks gigabit wireless backhaul network transmits the video to a central location that uses software from Object-Video, Reston, Va., for video analytics, and a video storage/management system by Genius Vision Digital, Taipei, Taiwan.
The server-based video analytics system was chosen because it offers the ability to employ user-defined analytics tools to match various scenarios that the port might want to watch out for, now or in the future, including such things as “objects left behind” as well as virtual tripwires, loitering, etc. “We didn't want to limit the exception capabilities,” says Jeff Gutierrez, national accounts manager for ADT Security Services, who notes that the inclusion of edge-based analytics within the cameras was not common two years ago when the project was envisioned. Even now, analytics at the edge tend to be less flexible than server-based systems, he adds.
“A wireless solution was the only thing that would meet the requirements of the system within the cost restraints,” Gutierrez adds. The high-throughput, low-latency BelAir network offers enough capacity to carry a lot of information around the city streets, taking advantage of point-to-point and multipoint-to-multipoint nodes. The system is easily expandable.
When the video analytics trigger an alarm, the operator can control the PTZ cameras to view the problem area from multiple angles, or the cameras can be programmed to move to pre-set locations to view the alarm.
The City of Richmond is installing a similar system, and future plans include the possibility of networking the systems together.
Port of Houston Gets Certified
At the Port of Houston, certification of security readiness is playing an important role that could foreshadow similar efforts at other ports.
The Port of Houston — a 25-mile-long port consisting of diversified public and private facilities — is ranked first in the United States in foreign waterborne tonnage and second in total tonnage. The Port of Houston is the first in the world to receive ISO 28000:2007 certification for security management.
After a three-year process of the development of Port of Houston Authority's (PHA) security management system, and its application to Port Police and the perimeter security operations at both the Barbours Cut and Bayport Terminals, the authority received certification from ABS Quality Evaluations (ABS QE). Developed in response to demand from the industry for a security management standard, with an ultimate objective to improve the security of supply chains, ISO 28000:2007 specifies the requirements for a security management system, including those aspects critical to security assurance of all aspects of the business management.
The comprehensive, independent audit by ABS QE validated standards and procedures at the port, making sure that the port does a significant job of bringing the private and public sectors together and that it is on track with all security measures including more detailed and efficient monitoring and documentation, broader training of the port authority's police force and security partners and more efficient processing of vehicles through its gates. James T. Edmonds, chairman of the Board of Commissioners of the Port of Houston Authority, says that achieving the standard brings a new level of awareness to be more sensitive to the port's own security initiatives. “This helps employees learn how to approach each day with right mindset and make sure our port operations are more sensitive to security,” he says.
The port's security management system consists of an access control system from AMAG Technology, Torrance, Calif., CCTV from Pelco, Clovis, Calif., and CCTV with video analytics from Verint, Melville, N.Y. This system was modeled after the port's successful Environmental Management System (EMS), which allowed the port to attain ISO 14000 certification in 2002.
Achieving ISO 28000 is only the first part of the port's continual improvement process, which will lead to the eventual certification of all terminals, according to Edmonds. So far, two terminals are certified, and the port hopes to go through the same process for all 11 of its facilities.
For the port that moved more than 200 million tons of cargo in 2006, Edmonds looks forward to the benefits of being certified. “We want to help other American ports achieve the same goal. And that's a nice honor to be asked to do that,” Edmonds says.
Situation Management in Virginia
Like many ports across the United States, the Virginia Port Authority made millions of dollars in security upgrades following the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Federal grants enabled the port to invest $22 million to implement hundreds of new surveillance cameras, to add access control and other security elements to harden buildings determined to be part of its critical infrastructure, to install cameras and sensors along 10 miles of fence line and to build a critical command center.
The need to monitor all of these security systems and devices, which spanned three different marine terminals — Norfolk International Terminals, Newport News Marine Terminal and Portsmouth Marine Terminal — prompted the Virginia Port Authority to pursue an additional $3 million federal grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for additional upgrades.
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