Integrated security, surveillance solutions help achieve security

High-rise buildings have garnered significant attention in the safety world over the years.

Safety in high-rise buildings, particularly fire safety, has always been a challenge over the years for builders, building management and providers of safety and security equipment and technology. The risk of one’s safety, onset of mishaps and the management’s inability to prevent or deal with them is one of the reasons why the residents are sceptical to move into high-rise structures. Ashish P. Dhakan, MD & CEO, Prama Hikvision India Pvt. Ltd. shares his views on the risks in living in high-rises and minimising the threats posed to the safety of the residents.

Dhakan is of the opinion that unauthorised intrusions and untoward incidents such as fire, smoke or gas leak outbreak are some of the biggest challenges while looking at the safety in high-rise buildings. Video surveillance solution is the most effective measure when it comes to addressing any such challenge in high-rise buildings.

He claims that Hikvision is completely equipped and prepared to tackle any such unforeseen security challenges in high-rise buildings. “The cutting-edge security and surveillance solutions of Hikvision always provide safety and security to the people, prevent crime, improve property security and safeguard women, children and senior citizens. Hikvision’s security and surveillance solutions are capable of detecting an unexpected presence using motion detectors. The cameras can also identify the potential threats like fire and smoke,” he says.

He further adds that Hikvision’s cameras come with embedded processors that enable video to be compressed within the device and transmitted real-time over IP networks to Network Video Recorders (NVRs) that centrally manage video feeds from many IP cameras. Streaming video can be continuously recorded and discarded in cycles of days, weeks, or months. In case of any untoward incident, disk indexing and time-stamping make it simple to find video from a given date and time.

Further, on identifying the risks, he says that any high-rise building is vulnerable to several risks. It could be intrusion, an accident, a calamity, to name a few. An intuitive blend of people and technology must be implemented at all of the building’s entry and exit points to de-risk the building from any kind of threat. In addition to a robust security and facility management system, the need of the hour is a ‘connected’ and technology-enabled and integrated security and surveillance solutions which can help the building management achieve exemplary levels of security.

Dhakan puts forth a few measures to counter the risks which high-rise buildings present and those that are not found in traditional low-rise buildings, such as longer egress times and distance, evacuation strategies, fire department accessibility, smoke movement and fire control. The multiple floors of a high-rise building create the cumulative effect of requiring large numbers of people to travel great vertical distances on stairs in order to evacuate the building. A well-maintained sprinkler system, fire alarms, voice communication, procedures, evacuation plans and protocols, well-marked exits and stairwell doors, prominent display of emergency numbers are some basic prerequisites.

However, the most critical pre-emptive measure is the need for cutting-edge fire and gas alarm systems, which can be fully integrated to intelligent building systems such as CCTV, access control, intrusion alarm and perimeter security, etc.

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