Showing posts with label ANPR. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ANPR. Show all posts

Friday, December 28, 2018

Pune CCTV makes revenue from traffic violators

Pune CCTV makes revenue from traffic violators

Pune city police is the law enforcement agency with jurisdiction over 790 km2 comprising Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad cities in Maharashtra. The city police are a division of Maharashtra police. The current Pune commissioner ate came into existence on 1 July 1965. Pune city police operates from 33 police stations. It also has the responsibility of traffic policing the city roads.


The police commissioner-ate is divide into two regions, North Region and South Region. Each region is headed by an Additional Commissioner of police. Each region is divided into two zones; hence there are four Zones in Pune City vitz. Zone – 1, zone – 2, Zone – 3, Zone – 4.
Each Zone is headed by a Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP). Each Zone is further divided into two or three sub-division. Each Zone is further divided int two or three sub-divisions. Each sub-division is headed by an Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP).

Pune city surveillance, referred to as PCS, is a holistic and integrated video surveillance system for the city of Pune. The PCS System of IP based outdoor security cameras across various locations in the city of Pune. The Video surveillance data from various cameras deployed is stored at data centre and monitored at all police stations, command control centers at CP office, PMC office, PCMC office and Collectorate.
  • The system consists of total 1363 cameras
  • Fix Box Cameras are 1068
  • Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) cameras are 217
  • Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras are 78

These Cameras are spread across 418 Locations along with 22 Locations for ANPR Cameras.

The live video feed from all these cameras is continuously saved and stored in the data centre which has the capacity to store the video from all the cameras up to 90 days and 180 days storing capacity for ANPR Cameras.

Following command control and viewing centers are setup for viewing the live feed from the system.
  1. Command and Control Centre at Commissioner of Police office with a viewing capacity of 150 cameras at time.
  2. Viewing centre of PMC with viewing capacity of 60 cameras at a time.
  3. Viewing centre of PCMC with viewing capacity of 25 cameras at a time.
  4. Viewing centre of Collectorate with viewing capacity of 10 cameras at a time.
  5. Viewing centre at each of the two Regional offices with capacity to view 10% of total cameras in the respective region, at a time.
  6. Viewing centre at each of the four Zonal offices with capacity to view 10% of total cameras in the respective zone, at a time.
  7. Viewing facility at each of the 40 police stations, with capacity to view 50% cameras in the respective police station jurisdiction.

Description of Components :
  1. Network and connectivity – All the surveillance equipment is connected in network, so that the video feeds are available at data centre as well as viewing centers 27X7.
  2. Data centre and applications – A data centre with high end servers with large storage facility is established, along with application servers. This center holds all the recordings from all the cameras, as well as all the monitoring applications.
  3. Command and viewing centers – the command centre is established in the CP office. Additional CP office, Zonal DCP offices, PMC, PCMC, Collectorate and Police stations have viewing centers for viewing the live video feeds from respective regions. The command centre at CP office also has video-wall for viewing. Other viewing centers have TV sets as well as workstations for effective monitoring of live video.
  4. Collaborative monitoring - The existing surveillance systems of Public and private establishments will also be integrated into PCS systems, so that in case of any incidence at these places, the video feeds will be available.
  5. Help desk and facility Management system – A system is established along with man power, to monitor and maintain the entire infrastructure. A responsive help desk with ticketing system is established so that, any fault in the system is resolved in time and the system is resorted in normal state as soon as possible.

Optimum Utilization :
  1. Maintaining Law and Order – Local commotion, Riots, Crowd gathering, Public festivals, Pubic gathering, Fire incidents.
  2. Crime investigations – Burglary, Robbery, theft, identifying people/vehicles, Harassments to shop-keepers/local people, fights, Tracing of Murders.
  3. Traffic controlling – Flow of Traffic, Density of traffic at junctions, Traffic congestion, Violation of traffic rules, Hit-and-Run cases, and Road accidents.

Support Pune Police to Maintain Law & OrderThe live video feed, 24×7 along with automatic various alerts, will enable police to understand the situation on the ground early, so that police can react in-time.
Act as an aid to investigationEntire video feed is recorded 24×7. So, any historical or past situation can be easily viewed by police.
Improve Traffic ManagementBuilt-in video analytics will generate automatic alerts for traffic violation.
Help in deterring, detecting and thus dealing with criminal activitiesContinuous display of live video, automatic alerts for crowd gathering, suspicious objects, suspicious loitering, automatic number plate recognition, will all help police to detect and deal with criminal activities efficiently.
The city traffic police collected Rs 7 crore more in 2018 as compared to the previous year after implementing the CCTV-drive e-challan system. In 2018, 2.5 lakh more violators were fined as compared to 2017, according to the information released by the Pune traffic police department.

The department took action against 18 lakh residents for traffic violations in 2018. Of these, 6.33 lakh cases were registered through the CCTV (closed-circuit television) surveillance system.

“Apart from active traffic policing, the major reason behind higher number of cases in 2018 are the CCTV’s installed across the city that captures the violations,” said Tejaswi Satpute, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), traffic.

A CCTV system captures the image of violators at traffic junctions and transmits it to the command and control centre of the traffic department through which a case is registered and fines are collected by the traffic personnel.

Residents who have violated the traffic norms can also go to the web portal (punetrafficop.net/) and pay the fines by filling the required details of the vehicles. The website provides details of the case, including the photograph of the vehicles violating the traffic rules.

In 2018, the traffic department generated a revenue of Rs 44 crore in fines, higher by Rs 7 crore than collected in 2017.

Out of the total 18 lakh cases, maximum numbers of fines were imposed on those vehicles that were found violating zebra crossings. Such violations amounted to 6.12 lakh cases out of the total 18 lakh cases where people were fined Rs 200 each.

“Zebra crossings are marked with black and white stripes on the road and zigzag lines on either side warning drivers that there may be pedestrians crossing or waiting to cross the road. They also tell drivers that they must give way to pedestrians on the crossing. However, people still violate these basic rules which results into taking actions against them,” said Satpute.
Due to the use of technology, we have the past records of traffic violations which have helped us to fine the offenders. We are now in a position that we can give the exact time and details about the traffic violations. Every day between 3 pm and 7 pm we conduct a drive across the city where we collect pending fines from violators using the records that we have with us – said traffic constable. 
At Nagpur, From October 6, 2016 and April 2, 2018, as many as 4,49,568 motorists were caught on mobile cameras breaking traffic rules. Of them, e-challans were already issued to 4,15,024 and fines too were recovered from them. The move has actually gone well as many motorists started following rules. The number of two-wheelers using helmets too have increased manifold.
Read Artical: ANPR

Sunday, July 29, 2018

Massive Growth of AI in Video Surveillance

Massive Growth of AI in Video Surveillance

In June 29, 2001 release A.I. Artificial Intelligence, co-written by American science fiction drama film, co-produced, and directed by Steven Spielberg and based on the 1969 short story "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" by Brian Aldiss. In the late 22nd century, rising sea levels from global warming have wiped out coastal cities such as AmsterdamVenice, and New York, and drastically reduced the world's population. A new type of robots called Mecha, advanced humanoids capable of thoughts and emotions, have been created.
No noo don’t stop to reading of my article, I am saying this movie come to true in the late 22nd century.The goal of AI is to provide software that can reason on input and explain on output. AI will provide human-like interactions with software and offer decision support for specific tasks, but it’s not a replacement for humans – and won’t be anytime soon. It augments our abilities and makes us better at what we do. Because AI algorithms learn differently than humans, they look at things differently. They can see relationships and patterns that escape us.

Neural Networks give thinking, Machine learning is popular but deep learning breakthroughs drive AI boom” says Arindam Bhadra, eSecurity expert cum blogger.

Now we look at why AI will become an integral part of your video surveillance solution in the coming years.

AI would play a major part in is going to be the analysis of the massive amount of data that is collected by the security system. If you consider the amount of data that is being collected by the device sensors, it is difficult to make heads or tails of data at present and this is where AI will come into the picture.

The rise of AI is beginning to revolutionize technology in various industries, and security is prominent among them.AI has become more popular today thanks to increased data volumes, advanced algorithms, and improvements in computing power and storage. Video surveillance solutions, for instance, are now seeing an AI-based applications.

The AI CCTV is basically a processing of the image with the help of deep learning algorithm and after processing you will get information. Artificial intelligence CCTV camera is just like CCTV operator that will give you information which you mean.

I will give infographics comparison of 100 cases in which CCTV recording as required, you can judge how to use artificial intelligence camera is.
To understand in the better way I will put an example so that this topic will clear in the more better way.

If two camera is installed at the main gate of an industry then what is the use of that camera, you need information and activity which is happening at gate, like how many people entered in the industry, number of vehicle passing from gate, may be you need vehicle number of all vehicle which are entered in the premises, you may wish for how many visitor visiting in premises, you may wish that how many time you regular staff passing from gate. So these are the activities that you need to watch, for this you put CCTV operator who can process all information and send you detail log but with help of AI CCTV camera with AI-Software, you can find the automatic log of these activities from software. So from the above example, it is more clear that what actually artificial intelligence camera is.

Surveillance systems that include video analytics analyze video footage in real-time and detect abnormal activities that could pose a threat to an organization’s security. AI helps security software ‘learn’ what is normal so it can identify unusual, and potentially harmful, behavior that a human alone may miss.

To understand technically AI-CCTV camera is a simple IP camera but it is embedded with AI-Software, so according to need they develop AI-software’s. There are many kind algorithms and software likeFacial reorganization- it will allow you finds people in a crowds place like railway stations, Airports, stadiums.

Intelligent Object, Event and Facial Recognition
In line with the concept of proactive and real-time security, AI-based technologies can offer superior facial and object detection capabilities. In fact, there is massive potential for facial recognition in the law and order sector where specific individuals need to be identified from crowds in large spaces.

And security is not the only place that is betting on this. Marketing departments in large corporations are also considering (if not already employing) facial recognition solutions to identify potential high-value customers who can be offered special services.

The power of AI will also enable “faceless recognition”, wherein a person can be identified not just from visuals of his face, but also from factors such as their height, posture, build, etc. Moreover, solutions could become more aware of the environment that they are monitoring, detecting patterns of activities and drawing out anomalies when required. They would also be able to experiment with different simulations and come up with possible scenarios where there could be potential threats.Faceless recognition systems would prove invaluable in situations such as the 2016 Berlin terrorist attacks where the attacker was caught on camera various times from angles where traditional biometric facial recognition systems failed.

Image Sharpening
Another huge benefit to using artificial intelligence in video surveillance systems is its ability to cross reference data with other neural networks or databases in order to fill the gaps in its own knowledge. The first artificial network enhance the details of the image in accordance to the layout provided in order to make it more feasible as an image.

This kind of image enhancing technology obviously has a huge amount of potential in video surveillance and security, from criminal and terrorist identification and tracking to staff monitoring and security access operations. This kind of technology could also allow remote IP cameras to stream enhanced video across a network that could then, in the case of a crime scene investigation, be remotely accessed by a forensics expert to assist in the investigation. The same could be true for security experts in video surveillance use cases whereby detectives can access image-enhanced video to investigate potential video recordings of wanted suspects.

Managing Massive deeper Data:
AI analyzes more and deeper data using neural networks that have many hidden layers. Building a fraud detection system with five hidden layers was almost impossible a few years ago. Surveillance is not just about data from a single source anymore. Cameras and sensors of diverse types are covering every nook and corner of locations to leave no room for error. This means that security solutions must deal with substantial amounts of data that require specialized software systems to manage.

AI systems could interpret data coming in via IP cameras and use it to automatically trigger alarms or notify security guards if it noticed something suspicious or out of place in the video data. Archive video footage could also be analyzed by AI systems using deep learning algorithms in order to place potentially new suspects at the scene of a crime automatically, with human agents merely updating a database the AI system had access to.

Video Summary
Video Summary is a fast and powerful application that reduces a long, archived video into a short, manageable video summary. Video Summary reduces the time required to analyze archived video by removing unnecessary video data such as static or empty scenes. Video Summary quickly analyzes the video and removes the static background data while retaining the relevant data. This allows security professionals to quickly review hours of archived video in minutes. Video Summary can receive video input from many different types of video archives recorded on DVRs, NVRs, or video management systems. It can also provide real-time video summaries on live video feeds from analog, digital, or IP/network cameras. With COM-SUR AI application help to Increase productivity and efficiency of security professionals.

Alarm Center
Alarm Center provides options to view, search, report and analyse all the alarms generated by AI analytics running on different systems across a LAN. It also provides heat map for multiple cameras and provides the paths of object or people movement. Reporting in PDF, JPG, Excel, Text file.

Unusual Motion Detection
UMD is an advanced artificial intelligence (AI) technology that brings a new level of automation to surveillance and is designed to reveal events that may have otherwise been missed. The analytic cameras will support either object detection or UMD but, not both at the same time.

The analytics definitely work and would be used for perimeter detection and alarming for sure but, if you aren't going to program the analytics and be proactive about it then UMD could be turned on and the camera will learn it's scene over the course of 1-2 weeks then when reviewing video instead of looking at lots of different motion events on the timeline you can filter the timeline to show just unusual events based on direction, speed, location.

"Today, most recorded video footage is never viewed, meaning critical events may go undetected. Avigilon is using artificial intelligence technology like UMD to help our customers effectively extract valuable insights from their video data," said Dr. Mahesh Saptharishi, Avigilon's CTO.

Edge Analytics
This is very cost effective solution without server requirement. Applying some supported cameras can provide Intrusion (Trespass, Boundary Crossing etc), Loitering, Crowding& Counting.

Enhanced Surveillance Monitoring
AI provide rapid detection of smoke even when smoke is formed in 10-15% of the viewfor both indoor and Outdoor Environments. It’s called Video based Smoke Detection(VSD).

Privacy Masking
Face and Skin area can be masked to protect the identity of the persons appearing in the camera view of surveillance system. While unmasked video is recorded & stored, masked video is viewed by operators during surveillance monitoring.

Thermal Sensing Camera
Thermal camera will allow you to measure the temperature of the particular object. It will install at a temperature sensitive place like industrial boiler etc. accordingly analysis object details through AI software.

Trigger Based Detection
The trigger can be obtained from devices like RFID, Traffic Light Signal. Triggers analytics for unauthorized people detection or object detection after people leave from the area of interest. So you can say this is apply for integration (BMS, ACS, Parking etc)

Real-Time Protection
Video surveillance solutions have always remained reactive and useful only after an incident has occurred or at least a threat is detected by human operators. This is all set to change with the arrival of AI systems that can detect a potential threat way before an incident occurs.

For instance,deep learning, neural network can detect unattended objects like bags in airports and public spaces, enabling authorities to act before it’s too late. Similarly, AI-enabled surveillance solutions can monitor the behavior of people in a store and identify those who might engage in shoplifting.

Demographic Analysis
It detects the gender for human face appearing in the camera field of view. Sometime is called Gender Detection.
This analysis can provide approximate age against human face appearing in the camera field of view.

Parking Management
Provides the parking occupancy level and free parking slot availability by detecting vehicle entry and exit by monitoring these transition points in parking lot areas.
Also detects the percentage of area occupied by vehicles and alerts against vehicle congestion as the vehicles occupy area beyond a threshold value.Illegal parking (no parking zone or restricted zone) of the vehicle in front of the entry/exit gates.

Beverage Management
Counts the number of cups / beverages passed over a line like in serving counter area.

Queue Management
Detects queue properties for waiting time analysis (Ingress – in flow, Egress – out flow. It’s applicable in service counters, ticket counters / travel desk, check in counters, flight boarding areas for waiting time analysis and improvement of service process.

Gesture Recognition
Detection of unusual gestures of persons by raising weapons (lathi/stick, rifle etc.) with intention to charge on others. Or a person slipping and falling on ground.Detection of object(s) removed / missing from the monitored zone in the camera view.

Appearance Search
Appearance Search technology will allow users to initiate a search for a person by selecting certain specific physical descriptions, including hair and clothing color, gender, and age. The new feature is designed to provide security operators enhanced speed and flexibility when conducting a search for a person. "While investigating critical events, time is of the essence, and security operators are often provided physical descriptions of the people involved," said Dr. Mahesh Saptharishi, Avigilon's CTO.

Crowding Detection
This technology allows you to know the density of the object in the crowd as the number of the object put at a particular place within the camera field of view / region of interest.
AI Analyses crowd movement patterns / direction in different way and marks it by different colours, and detects and movement of crowd in undesired direction.
Measures/counting the crowd level in terms of number of people occupying a specified region of interest in the camera field of view, provides live crowd count on screen.

PTZ Analytics
Speed dome camera / scan dome camera is called PTZ camera. Basically P – Pan, T – Tilt & Z indicate Zoom. Automatic tracking of object (Single or Multiple) using Pan-Tilt-Zoom (PTZ) camera.
Violation detected on any Fixed camera triggers PTZ camera to its view for auto tracking of the violator object.
Automatic one step PTZ operation to capture closer video of an agent on any pre-set rule violation such as crossing a virtual line, or entering a virtual area etc.
Different PTZ pre-set positions can be assigned to different regions and analytics can be run to monitor each of those pre-set positions.

Camera Tampering
Detection of camera tampering efforts by camera focus change or view obstruction or video cable cut.

ANPR
Number Plate Recognition Cameras allow you to recognize the number of vehicle and along with that it also stored the vehicle log. This camera is used in traffic management and traffic monitoring. It is also called automatic number plate reorganization (ANPR).

Most public spaces in India including railway stations, bus depots, metro stationand marketplaces are often under CCTV surveillance. New Delhi is all set to have one of the largest deployments in the country of CCTVs with the state government announcing plans to install 1.4 lakh CCTVs across Delhi. The India Railways is also setting aside Rs 3,000 crore in its 2018-19 budget to install CCTV systems across 11,000 trains and 8,500 stations, according to a news report.

AI performs frequent, high-volume, computerized tasks reliably and without fatigue” says Mr. Arindam Das Sarkar, Country Manager, Mirasys India. Mirasys is one of the leader in creating models using deep learning and Artificial intelligence based video analytics in India as well as global market.

Tamper Detection
Quickly get security officers to the damaged camera in areas with high crime rates, where there is a large potential for criminals purposely blocking the camera’s view.

Additionally, several technologies enable and support AI:
·         Graphical processing units are key to AI because they provide the heavy compute power that’s required for iterative processing. Training neural networks requires big data plus compute power.
·         The Internet of Things generates massive amounts of data from connected devices, most of it unanalyzed. Automating models with AI will allow us to use more of it.
·         Advanced algorithms are being developed and combined in new ways to analyze more data faster and at multiple levels. This intelligent processing is key to identifying and predicting rare events, understanding complex systems and optimizing unique scenarios.
·         APIs, or application processing interfaces, are portable packages of code that make it possible to add AI functionality to existing products and software packages. They can add image recognition capabilities to home security systems and Q&A capabilities that describe data, create captions and headlines, or call out interesting patterns and insights in data.
In Aug 2015, West Japan Railway Companymade a great example. After discovering that 60 percent of people hit by trains in Japan are intoxicated, they installed 46 security cameras that automatically search for and detect signs of intoxication. The AIvideo  looks for people who are napping on benches, stumbling, falling, or standing motionless for long periods of time and notifies human attendees who can then check to see if the person is in danger of harming themselves.

Using AI in video analytics, a number of systems will be able to communicate with each helping in taking decisions and readily catching suspicious activities or predicting them before they can happen.

With the advancement of AI, the future of video analytics is not limited to providing stagnant algorithms, but also to having the event and authorization-based alert systems. Wherein, the alerts will be sent only to an authentic person and the relevant department.

This Artical published in Safe secure magazine November 2018 edition.

Sunday, March 5, 2017

Access control in education sector

Access Control in Education Sector

Controlling access to school campuses and buildings is an important issue for school administrators. They need to maintain a user-friendly, welcoming school climate while ensuring that the facility is safe and secure, both when school is in session and when the buildings are unoccupied.

What is access control?
Access control provides the ability to control, monitor and restrict the movement of people, assets or vehicles, in, out and round a building or site.

Access control is essential for all businesses to protect people and assets and has the added benefit of being expanded from controlling, for example, a single entrance door, to a large integrated security network. There are also huge potentials in terms of integrating HR and other systems, such as Time and Attendance, Visitor Management, ANPR, Fire, Intruder and CCTV, which can cut costs and streamline administration costs.
What risks does the average office face and how can these be countered by access control?
Electronic access control systems are increasingly being used to enhance safety and security in educational establishments.

The average educational establishment has a transient population with many high value goods such as computers and IT equipment, not to mention the personal possessions of staff and students, which are extremely attractive for thieves.
Access control systems are all designed to allow access only to people with the necessary authority to ensure that goods and people are protected.

Educational establishments have a duty of care to provide a safe environment for pupils and staff and the application of access control can therefore help manage known or anticipated threats.

Generally systems comprise three component parts:
1. The physical barrier – to physically restrict access to a building or location via such methods as:
• Doors: secured by either a electromagnetic or strike Lock or can be revolving or sliding.
• Turnstiles and speedgates: designed to limit access to one person for one card presented.

2. The identification device – There are a number of different technologies used to identify users of an access control system, such as:
• A proximity card and reader using RFID – cards can either work at a short read range or a long read range.
• A smart card and reader.
• A swipe card and reader.
• PIN pads.
• Biometric (fingerprint, iris scanning).

3. The door controller and software – The door controller and software are at the heart of the system and are used to decide who can gain access through which access point at what time of the day. These can vary dependent on the size of the system and how many readers or sites you are trying to control from one point.
Some of the options include:
• A standalone door controller linked to a single door with no software.
• A number of door controllers all linked together to a single PC to control one site.
• A number of sites all interlinked together over a wide network area.

What added benefits can access control systems bring to educational establishments?
Protection during school hours is paramount, and the following added benefits come from access control:

Visitor monitoring
In an environment where visitors can blend in with the staff and pupils, the use of PC and computer networks should be considered. These systems can print photographic ID and allow access to be restricted to certain areas within the office. Moving to a software solution for visitor management is an easy and inexpensive solution and can provide a number of added benefits.

The system was designed to ensure the smooth operation of a 100,000 square metre complex, spread over five buildings with both students, staff and visitors accessing the different facilities sometimes at high volumes. A Smart Card system was developed which provides not only access to designated areas, but also allows all sites to be linked via a modem, allowing administration from a central point.

Automatic Number Plate Recognition
For college and university sites where students may be driving in and parking onsite, Automatic Number Plate Recognition may be a viable option. To monitor the entrance of vehicles on site, CCTV-style cameras and computer software can be used to identify number plates of vehicles. Some systems can also store photographs of the driver and vehicle for subsequent analysis. This sophisticated software allows critical information to be passed to the police to assist in the pursuit, identification and capture of offenders.

What key considerations should be taken into account when considering access control?
The outcome of the risk assessment for your office will determine the level of security you require and in turn influence your choice of access control system to be used. BSIA access control members and professional security consultancies can assist with this.

BSIA members go through rigorous checks before they are admitted into membership, meaning you are selecting quality companies to achieve peace of mind. Below are just some of the reasons why you could benefit from using the services of a BSIA member:

·        Independently inspected to the quality standard ISO 9001 with a UKAS accredited inspectorate.
·        Compliant with relevant British and European Standards and codes of practice.
·        Financially sound.
·        Professional.
·        Staff vetting conducted (where appropriate).
·        Technically proficient.
·        Committed to quality training and development.
·        Up-to-date with the latest developments in British and European policy and legislation.

Is there any legislation I should be aware of?
The Disability Discrimination Act was amended in 2005 and has significant impact not only in terms of the design of new systems, but also means that many systems may need to be upgraded to ensure compliance. This is of particular importance also for educational establishments as employees, pupils and visitors will all need to have adequate and user-friendly access to the building.
The BSIA has created a guide to help design access control systems following the introduction of the revisions which can be downloaded from www.bsia.co.uk/publications

Other legislation to be considered in relation to educational establishments is:

National minimum care standards
Health and Safety at Work Act
Occupiers Liability Act
Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations


Sunday, July 14, 2013

Access Control Standards Revolution Now In Progress

Access Control Standards Revolution Now In Progress 



Access control provides the ability to control, monitor and restrict the movement of people, assets or vehicles, in, out and round a building.

Access control is essential for all businesses to protect people and assets and has the added benefit of being expanded from controlling, for example, a single entrance door, to a large integrated security network. There are also huge potentials in terms of integrating other systems, such as Time and Attendance, Visitor Management, ANPR, Fire, Intruder and CCTV.

Few specifications are seen more commonly in access control than UL 294. However, aside from seeing it in print, very few understand what it means. In this note, we break apart and define this spec, describing why it is a vital part of many Access RFPs.


A Standard Defined
The scope of UL 294 covers three aspects of Access Control systems: 
  • Construction (Installation)
  • Performance
  • Operation
Essentially, the heart of UL 294 is a safety standard, where testing proves that system components can be assembled and operate reliably without hazard. In the case of access control, this is a step beyond just validating devices will not catch fire or spark - it attests that the system will not harm the safety or impede egress of those using the system.
In practical terms, this means doors will not accidentally stay locked and keep people in harm's way even during a malfunction. The UL standard subjects each labeled device to a range of testing designed to show the equipment meet relevant code expectations from:
  • NEC (NFPA 99): Requirements that each component will not create a hazard either during (recommended) install or use (Sparking, Grounding)
  • NFPA 72: Fire Code compliance, assures that controllers include interfaces with fire alarm/suppression systems 
  • NFPA 101: System devices 

A UL 294 mark is a 'extra step' the vendor has taken to 'prove' their equipment is safe, and it stands as a 'mark of assurance' when included in buying specifications that dubious equipment will not be purchased.

The Mark

While Underwriter's Laboratories offer a range of 'UL Symbols' that can be interpreted to signify different standards. In the case of UL 294, the mark looks like this:
The UL 'Security Mark' applies only to products such as intrusion detectors, burglar alarms, access control, safes, and vaults.

Performance Tests
UL 294 includes several tests that evaluate how well devices withstand damaging environments. Devices are subjected to atypical electrical, environmental, and brute force situations, including:
  • Variable Voltage
  • Variable Ambients (Environment)
  • Humidity
  • Endurance (Ruggedness)
  • Transients
  • Corrosion
  • Standby Power (Battery backup)
  • Physical Attack Toughness
Tests are performed individually and are not 'layered' or 'stacked' simultaneously as might occur in the field. The exact methodology for each test depends on the device being tested, but the resulting grade is given in four levels of security performance with Level I (lowest level security equipment) to Level IV (highest level security equipment). 

Exclusions
However, not all parts and features of an Access platform fall under the scope of UL 294. Two areas excluded from the scope include:
  • Headend Server/Database: The scope reads "The accuracy of logged data is not evaluated by this standard", and also "This standard does not apply to supplementary computer equipment that is not necessary for operation of the access control system..."
  • Intrusion Detection: Again, the scope details "Where an access control equipment and/or system incorporates the features and functions of a burglar alarm control unit, the requirements of the Standard for Proprietary Burglar Alarm Units and Systems, UL 1076, shall also apply"
This is important to note when careless specs are written that "All Access Equipment shall be UL 294 Certified", because this is inherently not possible. There will be major functional aspects outside the scope of the standard.

Large System Adoption
Especially for larger systems, UL 294 is common, including devices from: Mercury Security, C*Cure, S2, Maxxess, Sargent, etc.
However, certification is done on a component basis, and there may be gaps in a brand's portfolio. If UL 294 compliance is required in a system, every hardware component must be checked for conformity, as there is no 'system' certification.
Systems and platform intended for smaller deployments (<100 doors) typically forego the certification, because it simply is not a purchasing driver for many non-enterprise customers.

Prime Use
Regardless of the 'safety' overtures, like UL certification for surveillance equipment, 294 is primarily used to exclude non-compliant systems from specifications. UL 294 evaluation is not mandatory for Access Equipment, and many vendors forego the cost of certification especially when their offerings are not well suited for larger government, institutional, and hospital verticals where 294 is commonly cited. 
Likewise, while the mark's testing 'proves' that devices are safe, the onus remains on the field technician to install them in the correct fashion to indeed live up to the certification.

Remember once UL certification has void OEM is not responsible for any health & safety incident of your premises. UL certification void due to repairing through unauthorized service provider....etc.

NFPA 101
While NFPA 101 is comprehensive, the most relevant passages for access control include:
  • NFPA 101: 'Electrically Controlled Egress Doors' (2012: 7.2.1.5.6; 2009: 7.2.1.5.5)
  • NFPA 101: 'Releasing Devices' ( 2012: 7.2.1.5.10-12; 2009, 2006, 2003: 7.2.1.5.9 -7.2.1.5.11)
  • NFPA 101: 'Access Controlled Egress Doors' (7.2.1.6.2)
Specifically, requirements like Access Control Request to Exit (RTE), Exit Devices, and Delayed Egress foundationally conform to NFPA 101.

NFPA 72
In general, this code is the foundation of requirements that doors must release when fire alarms or smoke detectors go into alarm.

NFPA 80
Specifically, this code examines Fire Doors and how they are properly used for protection in a building. In many cases, these door types are also slated to become access-controlled openings, and the 'Locks or Latches (6.4.4)' section describes which modifications are permitted for access use without voiding their fire door ratings.

IBC: International Building Code
The IBC, published by the International Code Council, is essentially a guidebook for designing and engineering safe buildings.

If not observed directly as the authority, then whatever resulting codes that do have authority take guidance from the source.
  • ·     IBC: 'Door Operations' (2012, 2009: 1008.1.9; 2006, 2003: 1008.1.8)
  • ·       IBC: 'Sensor Release of Electrically Locked Egress Doors' (2012: 1008.1.9.8; 2009: 1008.1.4.4; 2006, 2003: 1008.1.3.4)
  • ·       IBC: 'Electromagnetically Locked Egress Doors' (2012: 1008.1.9.9; 2009: 1008.1.9.8)