About WATMOS
WATMOS is a charitable housing association which owns almost 2700 rental homes in the West Midlands and London. Each estate within the WATMOS portfolio has local teams that manage major housing improvements and other services, including security.
The Story in Brief:
- Seeking a more reliable and cost-effective alternative to existing CCTV monitoring arrangements at their Ethelred Estate in London, WATMOS approached Securitas.
- We recommended BriefCam (on a one-year trial), an innovative technology offering advanced capabilities in CCTV footage analysis.
- Installing BriefCam has enabled WATMOS to reduce the cost of monitoring CCTV on the Ethelred Estate by 20% in year one. From year two onwards, that saving will rise to 85% (compared to previous manual monitoring costs).
Ethelred Estate in Kennington is one of three London estates owned by WATMOS. Comprising both residential and commercial properties, most of the accommodation is in low rise blocks of one-to-five-bedroom townhouses. There are also two sheltered housing schemes within the estate.
One of WATMOS’ responsibilities is site security and a few years ago they installed 140 CCTV cameras around the estate to detect and deter crime and anti-social activity. These cameras were manually monitored 24/7 by two employees (from a specially converted flat within the estate), but the inefficiency and expense of this approach led WATMOS to Securitas in search of a better solution.
We recommended BriefCam, an innovative technology that uses AI and deep learning to quickly access valuable intelligence from CCTV video footage.
Already being used to great effect by Securitas clients in other countries, BriefCam has multiple applications, including review (hours of footage can be reviewed in minutes), search, real time alerting and the generation of quantitative insights. Operators can review footage according to their chosen search parameters – for example time, location, vehicle number plate, facial recognition.
Trial Period
WATMOS were keen to trial BriefCam, so we installed it for them, along with a technology platform that enables the software to interface with the existing CCTV cameras on the estate. We also arranged training to familiarise members of the WATMOS team with BriefCam’s extensive analytic capabilities.
The WATMOS team were quick to put BriefCam’s capabilities to the test. “We knew that commercial waste was being dumped in the residential bins and using BriefCam we were quickly able to identify who was responsible,” explains Barbara Wilson, Estate Coordinator for WATMOS London. “In another case, a resident in our sheltered accommodation was receiving unwelcome visits from an individual and BriefCam enabled us to pinpoint the frequency of these visits and take action accordingly. The system is easy to use, and the quality of the camera feed is much better so we’re capturing more information than in the past. For privacy protection, residents can only ask to see footage of themselves, not other people, but we can review and report any incident needing further investigation to the police, who can come and view the footage themselves.”
The deployment of Securitas’ remote monitoring and mobile services has also increased the value of the CCTV system. Securitas Operations Centre (SOC) has timed alerts set-up on certain cameras across the estate to monitor any improper usage of particular areas out of hours. If a situation arises, SOC will despatch a vehicle patrol to investigate.
Significant Cost Savings
Installing BriefCam has enabled WATMOS to reduce its previous CCTV monitoring spend by 20% in year one. From year two onwards, that saving will rise to 85% (compared to previous manual monitoring costs). The operational and economic benefits of this approach are already clear and at the end of the trial period WATMOS hopes to expand it to other estates in their portfolio.
“We knew that commercial waste was being dumped in the residential bins and using BriefCam we were quickly able to identify who was responsible” Barbara Wilson Estates Co-ordinator, WATMOS Community Homes, London
