The Brisbane Airport Corporation and the Queensland University of Technology’s Airport Innovation Research Lab have been working on CCTV technology to increase security and, hopefully, efficiency at the international airport. BAC General Manager of Operations, Stephen Goodwin, said that work was close to paying off, with new technology headed towards “intelligent” CCTV data that was set to revolutionise security at the airport. “Currently, CCTV isn’t always manned in the sense of it being constantly monitored,” he said.
“It just records and you go back if something happens and you look at the recording, so what this will do is help us directly monitor what’s happening in the terminal in real time.” Using what Mr Goodwin called “soft biometrics”, such as the colour of clothing being worn, along with facial recognition technology, the cameras in the terminal would soon be able to identify or track down any individual who had come through Customs. “Once you get through that [Customs] gate, it’s not that easy for them to find you, so with this new thing it’ll connect the information that comes from the smart gates directly with the CCTV and directly to [the person of interest],” Mr Goodwin said.
AIR Lab’s artificial intelligence and image processing specialist, Clinton Fookes said the software not only spotted those who posed a potential security risk, but also monitored how quickly passengers were able to move through the airport. “The video analytics tracks the overall flow and throughput of passengers through an airport – the time it takes for them to go from A to B to C – identifying bottlenecks and other issues that are slowing down arrival and departure processes,” Professor Fookes said.
