The Trafford Centre Joins the Digital Age

The Trafford Centre has switched on a new, fully digital CCTV security system thanks to a seamless transition from analogue by industry experts Swift Fire & Security.

One of the UK's leading shopping and entertainment destinations, The Trafford Centre is 98% covered by CCTV cameras, and is well-known in the retail world for its comprehensive and highly responsive security system.

Gordon McKinnon, Director of Operations at The Trafford Centre, understood the requirement for a high specification solution: 'As The Trafford Centre has grown in the past 10 years, so too has our CCTV system. We have extensive new areas to cover … as well as 32million visitors a year to look after. This means we required a state-of-the-art system which enables us not only to tackle crime, but spot accidents as they occur, and address the threat of terrorism.’

To provide the solution The Trafford Centre looked to Swift Fire & Security, the UK’s largest independent fire and security service provider. Based in Manchester, Swift have a long-standing relationship with the Trafford Centre and it is their commitment to this relationship which allowed them the opportunity to consult, design, supply, install and commission various CCTV projects over the years.

The heart of The Trafford Centre is their Central Control Room, designed to monitor all critical safety systems, such as, CCTV, security, fire safety, shop alerts and the Automatic Number Plate Recognition system, (ANPR), ensuring the protection of the millions of visitors who pass through it’s many doors every year. It is within this Central Control Room that Swift Fire & Security installed 2 Synectics Synergy Pro client PCs, giving operators the ability to review and immediately burn onto DVD, any CCTV footage for use as evidence. Gordon McKinnon explains the serious requirement placed upon the system: 'We observe almost every inch of the Centre every second of the day - to control crowds, assign staff to situations, and even to control the traffic’.

The CCTV upgrade comprised of 21 fully networked IBM servers acting as storage units, each server containing 3.3 TB of storage capacity. In total, 70 TB (70.000GB) of storage is available for the many internal and external cameras on site. When it is considered that a single DVD has the capacity of 4.7 GB, the systems installed provide sufficient space available to store the equivalent of 15,000 DVDs.Gordon McKinnon explains the benefits of the new systems: ’Now, instead of continually changing analogue tapes and storing data for 31 days, everything can be automatically fed to a space-saving hard drive, and reviewed at the press of a button or edited and emailed over to our colleagues in the emergency services.’

During the upgrade many other CCTV projects have also taken place within The Trafford Centre, such as the
Great Hall and the Barton Square link bridge. Many existing cameras have also been upgraded to improve image quality and provide remote diagnostics, useful as the first line in fault finding.

The handover was completed on schedule with the initial aim of no system down-time achieved. Gordon McKinnon explains his delight in the service provided: 'The install was seamless, with no downtime whatsoever. We've experienced a professional job from Swift, a provider who fully understood the brief and carefully brought the new system online with no hiccups.’

Following the 352 camera installation and a move to digital recording and storage solutions, the 150-acre site now boasts one of the most modern security surveillance networks of its kind in the UK. As Gordon McKinnon suggests, 'Modern CCTV is no longer a plain deterrent merely because of its visual presence. We fully monitor our CCTV, and quickly act upon it and the improvements to our system from Swift Fire & Security make The Trafford Centre even safer and more efficient a retail destination than it was before.’

Following the handover, the relationship between The Trafford Centre and Swift Fire & Security has grown even stronger. Both parties are now looking to the future to ensure that The Trafford Centre remains at the forefront of CCTV technology within the retail industry.