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At the time of the case study in summer 2010, ACE was
Lessons Learned
working on a new grant proposal that was effectively phase
2; specifically, a request to add surveillance at two more sta- Although in amount of money and time, this case study
tions. To date, ACE has received approval for an additional reports on what would be considered a small upgrade of a
$300,000 from a FY 2010 Transit Grant Security Program surveillance system, to ACE the upgrading required work-
grant that will be used to fund a continuation of the surveil- ing closely with a large number of partners and will cause
lance system and the Freemont Centerville and Santa Clara a number of internal administrative changes. Under pres-
Great America stations. Although Amtrak owns the plat- ent policies, images were retained for 5 days; under the new
forms at both stations, ACE will fund all of the Fremont Cen- system, which will provide a higher quality video image, the
terville platform and parking facility system costs but only images will be retained for 10 days. After formulating new
the parking facility at the Santa Clara Great America Sta- procedures, ACE has decided that the video images will be
tion, where Amtrak will assume the platform costs. Because accessible only to the safety and security coordinator and
this is a shared project in relation to both funding and use, to IT personnel. A new policy on chain of custody is also
ensuring equipment interoperability played a large role in anticipated, more clearly delineating those who are consid-
the plans for both stations. As designed and offered out for ered authorized personnel.
bidding, ACE will be able to view Amtrak's system and
Amtrak will be able to view ACE's system. First responders These administrative changes reinforce that surveillance
will be able to view everything at all stations. hardware purchases, regardless of the funding sources for
upgrading or retrofitting are obtained, require that an agency
In addition to working closely with Amtrak and the local give advance consideration to how the new network will
communities it serves, ACE also used outside expertise. The affect its day-to-day operations and what personnel deci-
system was designed by a consultant who also wrote the sions, and policies and procedures will require creation or
RFP and continued to assist the agency after the contract revision to complement the new system.
was awarded to TRC, a California firm, based in large part,
according to Walker, not only on the firm's understanding
of the technical requirements of the new project but also on CASE STUDY 2: METRO TRANSIT, MINNEAPOLIS,
its ability to work with the existing infrastructure and, most MINNESOTA
important, the issue of recurring budget concerns. Even with
this high level of cooperation and understanding, including Description of the Transit System
regular progress reports, the timeline for the work was lon-
ger than originally established. TRC, though, was able to Metro Transit is a multimodal system that provides bus, light
explain why some deadlines originally slipped and were able rail, and commuter rail service to the MinneapolisSt. Paul
to stay within the budget. (Twin Cities) metropolitan area. The Hiawatha Line intro-
duced light rail service in 2004; it covers 12 route miles and
Despite working closely with its many local and rail- 19 stations, including downtown Minneapolis, the Min-
road partners, ACE had considered requesting funding for neapolis/St. Paul International Airport, and the Mall of
ROW cameras but was unable to develop a partnership with America in Bloomington, Minnesota, the largest shopping
UPRR. Even without the inclusion of ROW surveillance, mall in the United States. Fifteen stations are at-grade, three
ACE anticipates that when the work is completed during the are elevated, and one is underground. The route includes a
first quarter of 2011 it will have a fully functional security 1.6-mile tunnel under the airport. The 15 grade crossings
surveillance system in place. In addition to stations, the sys- are equipped with warning equipment but not with video
tem will cover all employee areas, IT areas, lobby, customer surveillance.
service, bus lanes, and counting room areas. It represents
upgrading in a number of areas. For instance, although Trains run in two-car and three-car consists; vehicles
the existing system recorded on a 24-hour basis, it was not are articulated, designed for 66 seated passengers and 187
viewed in real time and provided a record of events only. The passengers at full capacity, and are equipped with luggage
new system will be monitored from 4 a.m. to 9 p.m., Mon- racks and bicycle storage hangers. Vehicles are bidirectional
day to Friday, by a combined staff of operations center per- and are powered by 750 VDC from overhead power lines.
sonnel and agency security staff. Hours beyond those will Traction power substations are operated automatically from
be monitored by the ACE facility watchman and contract the Hiawatha Rail Control Center. Regular service hours are
security officers in the ACE Operations Monitoring Center. from 3:40 a.m. to 2:25 a.m.; rush-hour headway is 7.5 min-
Additionally, because ACE relies on a large number of local utes. In addition to regular service, airport shuttle service is
police departments, each will have viewing ability but none provided between the two airport terminals; headways are
will have camera control authority, which will remain solely 10 minutes. Traveling the entire line one way takes approxi-
within the agency. mately 36 minutes.
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In late 2009, Metro Transit opened its Northstar line, a rity and Police Services, reports directly to the general man-
40-mile, six-station commuter rail line that operates with ager. Information not publicly available was provided for the
5 locomotives and 18 refurbished passenger cars traveling case study by A.J. Olson, Deputy Chief of Police.
on BNSF tracks from downtown Minneapolis to Big Lake,
Minnesota. Through a perpetual easement agreement with Hiawatha's Original Video Surveillance System
BNSF, Northstar operates 12 trains on weekdays and 6 on
weekends and holidays, with provisions for numerous special Despite opening for revenue service with a well-designed
events trains annually. Northstar connects to the Hiawatha video surveillance system, Metro Transit has been upgrad-
LRT through a four-block extension of the light rail line to ing its system almost since its inception. The initial system
reach the downtown Minneapolis commuter rail station. was based on almost 130 cameras that were installed at the
With the exception of the downtown station, all Northstar 17 original stations and two parking lots. The at-grade and
stations have park-and-ride facilities. elevated stations have canopies and windscreens and over-
head radiant heaters. Each station is furnished with emer-
Metro Transit contracts with BNSF for operations and gency call boxes, maps, information kiosks, public art, and
train control. Policing is the responsibility of the Metro Tran- benches. Fare collection is a self-service, barrier-free proof
sit Police Department in conjunction with local departments of payment system that is checked periodically by Metro
along the alignment. There is video surveillance at the com- Transit police officers. Each station, with the exception of
muter rail platforms and in the parking lots. There are also large facilities (i.e., Mall of America, Lindbergh Airport
cameras onboard the railcars recording the passenger areas Terminal, and Lake Street Station) was designed with four
as well as forward-looking cameras in each locomotive and cameras per station. Cameras also monitored the portals into
cab car. None of these cameras are monitored in real time the tunnels on S. Hiawatha and Minnehaha and at the airport.
nor are there plans to monitor them in the immediate future. With the exception of one pan-tilt-zoom camera (Figure 5) at
Fort Snelling, all others were fixed-position cameras.
Planning is also under way for the Central Corridor, a sec-
ond light rail line that will provide service between downtown
Minneapolis and downtown St Paul, traveling primarily in a
median of University Avenue, and providing service to the
University of Minnesota. The FTA announced approval of
funding of this extension in April 2011. The 11-mile Central
Corridor will share five stations and 1.2 miles of track with
the existing Hiawatha line. New construction will include 15
stations and about 10 miles of track. Plans for electronic video
surveillance include covering station areas where TVMs are
located, portions of platforms, and all skyways and tunnels.
Cameras will be installed in all LRVs, but not in parking lots.
As with the existing system, it is not anticipated that cameras
will be monitored in real time.
Security Organization and Personnel
Metro Transit's police department is in transition. Currently,
it is an unusual combination of a fully accredited in-agency
police department and part-time officers from other agen-
cies. The police department was formed in 1993 after receiv-
ing legislative approval. For almost a decade, it employed
only supervisors who oversaw about 175 local police officers
who worked part-time for the transit system while working
full-time for their home departments.
In 2002 the agency decided to convert to a traditional,
full-time transit police department made up of officers
employed solely by Metro Transit. The department now
employs about 70 full-time Metro Transit officers and about FIGURE 5 Fixed cameras (top) are being replaced with
pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras (bottom). PTZ cameras provide
50 part-time officers from other departments who continue greater surveillance coverage because they can pan (move left
to work a number of tours of duty on the rail line. Chief and right), tilt (move up and down), and zoom in or out. Photos
David H. Indrehus, whose official title is Director of Secu- courtesy of Metro Transit Police.
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Each LRV was equipped with four onboard cameras for ity to immediately play back the video to see what activated
digital recording but without audio capability. Other emer- the alarm. This system is employed in addition to another
gency and communication systems include a Supervisory intrusion detection system that is also designed to recognize
Control and Data Acquisition System (SCADA) to monitor a non-LRV intrusion.
train location, track, systems, and alarms, and a radio system
that is compatible with regional emergency services radio Current and Future Upgrades
networks. Radio service is available on the LRVs; at the Rail
Control Center; and through rail supervisors, maintenance Metro Transit is continuing to upgrade and retrofit. In 2007
personnel, and police personnel. 2008, again with DHS TSGP funding, a larger hard drive
and forward-facing cameras were added to the system on the
All camera feeds were initially routed to the Rail Con- LRVs. In a project still under way, beginning in 2008, the
trol Center, located at the Rail Operations and Maintenance extension of LRV station platforms to accommodate three-
building through fiber-optic cables for recording on eight car consists required that at least one camera be added to
VHS tape decks with 16 cameras recorded on each tape with each platform. Since 2009, and ongoing depending on avail-
the use of a multiplexer. This was found to be unsatisfactory able funding, Metro Transit plans to replace two fixed cam-
because it resulted in extremely slow frame rates on each eras at each location with megapixel cameras.
camera (more that 1 or 2 seconds between frames), which
resulted in the loss of a great deal of video evidence as the Other upgrades are also under way; virtually all involve
multiplexer scrolled through its assigned cameras. In addi- DHS funding. These include installing a wireless mesh net-
tion, the four onboard cameras were recorded only on the work along the alignment to allow for real-time monitoring
vehicle; they lacked remote viewing capability. This created of LRV cameras; providing the capability for wireless down-
inefficient retrieval of video because the hard drive had to loading of LRV video at the Operations and Maintenance
be removed from the vehicle and manually downloaded for building, which will eliminate the need to physically remove
viewing. The cameras also lacked the resolution to identify hard drives from the LRVs to download video, and upgrad-
individuals well enough to be considered forensic tools; spe- ing software to a digital recording system to make it a true
cifically, identifications were not clear enough to be used to network digital recording system. The last improvement is
positively identify a suspect's image. being funded as part of the Central Corridor light rail tran-
sit expansion because it will make expanding the recording
Attempts to solve these problems led to system upgrades capacity easier and less expensive in the future.
in 20052006. At that time, camera lenses were upgraded to
"auto-iris" lenses, which improved video quality in all light- Lessons Learned
ing conditions by automatically adjusting to available light
rather than having to predetermine a setting that compro- As a new light rail system, Metro Transit was able to incor-
mised between ideal day and night settings. A year later, in porate virtually all recommended CPTED features into its
20062007, two of the four fixed cameras at each platform stations, station platforms, and shelters and parking facili-
were replaced with pan-tilt-zoom cameras. ties. In addition, onboard surveillance was an integral part
of the overall safety and security program. Despite this,
In 2007, DHS TSGP funding led to a major upgrade to certain inadequacies were recognized almost immediately.
a digital, server-based system. This allowed for continuous Problems are often magnified when never technology raises
recording of all cameras with adjustable frame rates; images expectations, for instance in the quality of video images and
per second were increased to ten IPS to eliminate loss of the belief that all images can be used for positive identifica-
video, which also improved image quality significantly and tion. Even with a steady funding stream, something agencies
made the review and retrieval of video less time-consuming. cannot rely on, the speed at which new features of surveil-
About 3 years ago, Metro Transit became one of the first lance systems become available makes it virtually impos-
transit agencies to incorporate video analytics into its sur- sible for transit agencies to keep pace with changes.
veillance network, installing it at tunnel portals to supple-
ment its intrusion detection system. The video analytics were Metro Transit has been successful in obtaining funds.
purchased with DHS TSGP funding as part of the project to Its DHS grants have totaled in excess of $1 million. How-
implement the digital, server-based video recording system. ever, competing for funds requires time and expertise. The
The analytics are designed to "recognize" rail vehicles and application process requires not only understanding fund-
allow them to pass without notice. However, if something ing requirements and deadlines but also having available
else accesses the portal, including pedestrians, animals, or a individuals with the technical knowledge to know what to
vehicle of another configuration, or even garbage blown by request. Additionally, although vendors are now aware of
the wind, the video monitor above the rail control supervi- the needs of transit agencies--particularly video systems
sor's console will immediately switch to the affected camera that can operate under varying lighting conditions and
view accompanied by an alarm. The supervisor has the abil- provide sharp images that can be easily downloaded and
