What can you really analyze from CCTV footage?

According to AIthority, the U.S. has an astonishing 15.28 security cameras for every 100 people. This is the largest per-capita figure in the world. While China, Germany and the UK take other top positions for the most-surveilled nations on earth, there's still a cloud of suspicion surrounding what these devices are designed to achieve for both civilians and businesses. In the age of big data, the air should finally be cleared. CCTV cameras are proving far more useful than many of us realize, beyond just stopping crime or leading to arrests.

With so much data to analyze, camera controllers have a wide range of potential for commercial and private applications. Here are just some of the ways in which information can be utilized through connected devices.

Delivery and pickup patterns

Advanced motion tracking can reveal how people are moving products in and out of your premises. Warehouses, hospitals, food factories and manufacturing sites can all benefit from better delivery planning. This helps vans, cars and trucks park more effectively while keeping walkways safe. CCTV can also track the number of high-priority (expensive) goods moving through the area, so you can make sure they get to where they're meant to be on time.

Store interactions

Heat mapping is a great tool for measuring in-store locations of interest. Advanced CCTV with heat sensors show where people congregate throughout the day, which may influence where  retail displays and signage are situated, thereby maximizing available floor space. In a similar vein, it can identify where congestion tends to build, allowing managers to address potential health and safety risks. Even sports stadiums can implement heat mapping for critical entrance/exit points.

Site footfall

CCTV that uses a "people counter" will tally everyone who visits the area of concern, sending the data back to a central analysis hub. It provides an overview of footfall per day, week, month or longer, allowing businesses to ascertain what people are searching for and how much time they tend to spend in any environment. Facial scanning and body movement recognition underpin this technology.

Parking space management

Parking attendants have less to worry about with CCTV for support. Modern smart cameras can scan bays and license plates for occupancy violations, removing some of the grunt work for checking that parking times haven't expired. Equally, they can assist parking itself. Dahua Technology, for instance, forges a video link between on-site cameras and a vehicle's dashboard for more awareness. The space the driver chooses is then granted a color scheme (yellow for disabled, blue for VIP, etc.) to let parking operators know who's in which bay and whether they're meant to be there.

At Perle Systems, we're proud to spearhead CCTV with wider internet of things (IoT) applications. For instance, we provided copper-to-fiber transmissions for the City of Colorado and powered their new cameras with our industrial switches. Countless data streamed back and forth between devices and city officials. Learn more about our work in Colorado here or get in touch to ask about your own IoT transformation.