How Video Technology Helped Chapel Hill Increase Transit Safety

Safety Challenges

Chapel Hill is a connected community where public transportation plays a significant role in bringing the city’s residents and visitors of all ages, incomes, and abilities to their destination. Mark A. Lowry, Safety Officer, Transit at the Town of Chapel Hill, shared with us how the transportation team saves time and resources using new hardware and software from Seon.

“Video camera footage is essential when it comes to incident investigations and liability claims,” explains Lowry. “Sometimes, to resolve a case we had to spend hours pulling hard drives from buses manually and then spend time trying to locate the right video footage. There were also times when we weren’t sure if the needed video was recorded since we didn’t have a way to check this on each vehicle in advance”.

The transportation team was looking for ways to improve their operational efficiencies, when their Maintenance Manager told them about Seon’s vMax Commander for video management and automatic Wi-Fi downloading.

Overcoming Limitations

Transit at the Town of Chapel Hill also experienced the limitations of the older camera technology.

“To defend a claim or complaint, we need enough camera views and clarity to prove who is at fault,” explains Lowry. “When Seon released their 16-channel Hybrid NVR system (NX16), we were the first ones to test it and we immediately saw the detail in the footage we were missing before.”

The Chapel Hill transit team decided to implement the new technology gradually, including video cameras and wireless video downloading, starting with the pilot project.

The new video systems with vMax Commander software helped:

1. Increase operator and passenger safety
2. Save up to 6-8 hrs of working time per incident investigation
3. Ensure clear video evidence for law enforcement.

Download the full case study to see how the Town of Chapel Hill increased public safety.

Vlada Terenina
Marketing Coordinator | Seon
vlada.terenina@seon.com