“In a proprietary system, an agency’s hardware and software will
operate as an independent program; requiring any and all features
to be sourced from the same provider’” Buchner explained. “When
you use our open platform, you can use our hardware with different
viewing software and add on technologies from other data agencies.
It’s completely scalable and allows fleets to incorporate an endless
amount of features.”
Industry Protection and System Training
Beltz explained the benefits of surveillance in protection against
workers compensation cases, insurance purposes, personal injury
litigation, and other issues.
“The footage captured has been vital to multiple business
groups within COTA,” he said. “The Safety, Legal/Claims, and
Security Departments rely heavily on video and audio data to
analyze vehicle accidents, injuries, and identify individuals who
disrupt service or perform criminal acts onboard the buses. We
are committed to providing a best-in-class, safe service to our
community, and the video that we capture is extremely helpful
when it comes to pursuing the legal action necessary to ban
passengers who are intent on causing trouble. I don’t think it’s
a stretch to say that it would be nearly impossible to accomplish
many of the things that we do without the use of our onboard
surveillance systems.”
He further discussed how the video footage has enabled COTA to
improve their training programs by analyzing their own operations
and practices. Beltz stated that “video analysis following an
accident or incident has helped our Training Department develop
an understanding of driver skill gaps. It’s allowed us to deliver more
specifically designed training for drivers.”
Safety Vision provides continuous training to COTA to ensure
they understand their systems and can utilize them efficiently. Upon
installation, Safety Vision provided onsite training and certification
to COTA staff, which included cycling through different camera
configurations and linking the system to COTA’s Wi-Fi infrastructure.
Throughout the relationship, Safety Vision provides support at no cost
for configuration, checking vehicle health, new bus commissioning,
and other routine maintenance.
Several years ago, Safety Vision offered Beltz an extensive hands-on
training opportunity at their headquarters in Houston, Texas.
“Over the course of the week I spent there, I had an opportunity to
work with several of their senior service technicians, and members
of their product development team,” Beltz said. “This learning
opportunity was invaluable, as the knowledge that I was able to bring
back to my team enabled us to perform some routine maintenance and
repair tasks on our own, thereby improving our efficiency. Tasks that
might have once taken a day or two for our service technicians to get
to are now addressed immediately.”
20 | BUSRIDE.COM | JULY 2020