Security is more important than ever, these days, at events that attract large numbers of people. To ensure security during last week’s E3 Record Bank cycling classic race in Harelbeke (Belgium), Barco set up a temporary control room. It helped the event organizers gain a 360° view of what was happening along the route.

From classroom to ad-hoc command center
Within just a few short days, Barco converted a local classroom in Harelbeke into an ad-hoc command center, featuring its networked visualization and collaboration platform (Barco video wall and TransForm N). The Barco set-up captured images from fixed and mobile CCTV cameras, the police helicopter and drones and even feeds from social media and the public broadcasting TV station to combine them in perspectives, distribute these and visualize them on the video wall. Thanks to the Web Streaming Gateway (WSG-100) add-on, people in the control room could stream the data over standard HTTP Live Streaming Protocol to security and emergency services in the field, to be visualized on local displays or even mobile devices. Moreover, a second WSG solution supported the exchange of live content from the Crisis Center in East-Flanders, which ensured that all police forces were in sync.

Faster, better decisions
The feedback – and the ROI – was positive: the simple, cost-effective set-up helped improve communications and, as such, command and control during the cycling race. As all the information was available to the right people at the right time, everyone involved – event organizers, police forces, emergency services and the experts from private security firm Securitas – had a real-time view of what was happening along the route. This significantly enhanced efficiency: decisions were better, because they were based on real-time data, and taken much faster.

Inspired by earlier success
The set-up in Harelbeke was inspired by the success of a temporary command center which helped ensure physical security during a WWI remembrance ceremony in Nieuwpoort (November 2014). In addition, Barco successfully ensured security at a major Belgian music festival in August 2015, with a similar network-centric control center.

The set-up in Harelbeke and Nieuwpoort was initiated by INNOS, the new Belgian Innovation Center for Security and involved a close cooperation between Barco and private security expert Securitas. The latter, by the way, also relies on our networked visualization platform in its own control room! They’ve recently launched a short video to illustrate their ‘everyday security heroes’, which features our solutions! ( Watch it now)

More information on our temporary command centers? Read the full customer stories of the Nieuwpoort and music festival installations.