LA Metro

Results

When the EOC was established in 2012, the Hiperwall solution enabled LA Metro to create a real-time transportation fusion center. LA Metro gained the ability to display both rail video feeds and bus video feeds together on a video wall at the same time. Due to the large-scale size of the video wall, the LA Metro team and law enforcement could see more visual intelligence at once, significantly improving situational awareness. Today, 215 video camera feeds are connected to the Hiperwall video wall system and the feeds can be viewed immediately with a few clicks of the mouse.

Hiperwall enables LA Metro to choose which video feeds or other visual information they want to see on the wall. The team can add, remove, resize or reposition each view of information as they choose. For example, one video feed can be enlarged and stretched across the entire video wall in seconds, or smaller arrangements of many different video feeds can be arranged in any size or position desired across the video wall, even overlapping across monitor bezels. Different arrangements of video feeds or other information can be created and saved ahead of time as an “environment,” and multiple environments can be created ahead of time and then viewed one after the other in seconds. Views of video feeds or other information can also be set as rotating slideshows. As you can see, Hiperwall provides LA Metro with vast flexibility for performing surveillance of the rail and bus lines; the technology  provides extensive visualization and situational awareness through monitoring capabilities that were never before possible for the agency.

Now that LA Metro staff and law enforcement have an enhanced view of the rail and bus lines, they are able to better analyze a situation and send the appropriate amount of officers to the scene for response or an investigation.

“Before Hiperwall, our ability to visualize an incident was limited,” said Quach. “When an incident required law enforcement, for example, it was not clear how many officers were needed. Now that we have a great deal of video intelligence, we can send out the appropriate number of officers, or even none at all. That was not true when we had our prior system and less visibility into a situation. Hiperwall helps our response be more effective and more efficient.”

While Hiperwall assists with minor incidents at LA Metro, Hiperwall’s main purpose is to stand at the ready to serve as LA Metro’s primary tool during a major incident to provide situational awareness for LA Metro staff and law enforcement. EOC operations are not fully activated unless there is a major disruption. Once a major incident has been detected visually on the video wall, LA Metro staff can monitor events on the video wall, respond as needed and also alert law enforcement and emergency response units.

Whether a minor or major incident occurs, the video wall provides video conferencing capabilities for communication between LA Metro staff located at the headquarters and law enforcement located at the mobile operation command center, supporting the efficient deployment of mobile units.

Another benefit of Hiperwall for LA Metro is the ability to view social media activity on the video wall. “Monitoring social media activity on Hiperwall is a key benefit to LA Metro because we are able to gather intelligence for geolocation of the tweets and other communications,  and view the information against reports in that particular location to determine if a law enforcement response is needed in that area,” said Quach. “In some cases, social media helps us diffuse incorrect information.”

During times of non-emergencies and when minor incidents are not occurring, the video wall can be used for other purposes, including training and debriefings. Hiperwall is used to support annual training and testing for LA Metro staff, law enforcement officers, and bus supervisors. Training materials such as videos, online resources and PowerPoint presentations are displayed on the Hiperwall system. After incidents occur, information is displayed on Hiperwall as part of the debriefing process.