Video surveillance of cable cars and cableways

Easy cable car surveillance installation in a difficult environment

The Merano 2000 ski resort, with over 40 km of slopes for every level of difficulty, offers perfect conditions for passionate skiers. On 20 December 2010, the new Merano2000 cable car, the largest in South Tyrol, was inaugurated, replacing the historic cable car that had been closed 10 months earlier. Capable of transporting up to 120 people in 7 minutes from Merano to the ‘PiffingerKöpfl’, the new cable car has 2 cars for 120+1 passengers each and operates 365 days a year. The starting station is at 650 metres above sea level, the mountain station at 1,899 metres, for a total distance of 3,642 metres. A major innovation is the Gsteier intermediate station, where the cable car stops exclusively at the request of travellers. The requirements for video surveillance of the Merano 2000 cable car were diverse: to control the situation inside the moving cabins, monitor the 3 stations and check the presence of any customers waiting at the intermediate station. The system had to meet some important technical requirements: to use a wi-fi transmission system to send the filmed images, to have high resistance to low temperatures and to offer extreme technical reliability, in order to avoid extraordinary maintenance as much as possible, given the particular difficulties of installation and access.

Ready to be installed outdoors, easy to install, able to tolerate extreme temperatures, HDTV video quality, possibility to manage multiple H.264 streams: these are the main technical features that made Ithel di Locatelli’s choice of AXIS P3344-VE cameras.

The camera’s weatherproof and vandalism-resistant housing, capable of withstanding temperatures as low as -40°C, is particularly suitable for harsh environments; the remote zoom allows the viewing angle to be optimised according to the scene and the pixel resolution required at the time of installation, while the remote focus allows for sharp images at all times, without having to physically travel to the installation site to manually change the settings; the power supply exclusively by Power over Ethernet standard (IEEE 802. 3af) also greatly simplified installation, which is no small matter in hostile environments.

HDTV video resolution, support for Wide Dynamic Range and Day&Night functions contribute to the production of sharp images in all lighting conditions, which is of strategic importance in outdoor environments with low artificial light.

Finally, the support for two-way audio is useful for communicating with passengers in the cabs, in case drivers or station personnel need to provide guidance in critical situations. The transmission of data from the cameras installed inside the cabins and on the pylons to the control centres takes place in wi-fi mode, a technology that is very useful for this type of installation, as it avoids costly and inconvenient cabling works; wi-fi coverage is ensured by a few repeaters installed on the pylons, while the three stations have been cabled with fibre optics.