Camera Monitoring Question

[ScottFree]

Can anyone provide me with a link that can show what the number of cameras a trained observer can monitor? Is there such an "official" number?

I am trying to prove that a security officer with several other duties, cannot monitor more than 40 cameras, and i need some kind of official, or at least reputable source.

[Maxx102]

I haven't seen any definitive numbers either, but it depends on your setup. size of the montors you are using, are the cameras on a multiplexer, etc.

Where I work, we have about 20-25 cameras that we monitor full time, the remaining 160 + are all recording and are used for follow-up and investigational purposes.

We prioritize our cameras. Exterior PTZ, Interior PTZ, And static (non-PTZ) perimeter cameras (door cameras, vehicle ramp gates, etc.) are our primary cameras, the rest as I said are all recording to our cloud servers.

[SafeSmallTowns]

http://www.securitysa.com/article.as...articleid=3313

"Getting an answer to this question is just about impossible at the present time. Little research has been done on the question. What has been done shows a simple common sense result - as we add more monitors, detection rates go down."

There are many specific examples in this article that should help you.

[sec-guy]

I have worked a distribution warehouse as a post. We had over 100 cameras in the warehouse. We watched people and merchandise. I had 7 monitors available. With 6 of the monitors I could only monitor 1 selected camera at a time. The 7th monitor allowed me to put many view schemes; such as 4x3 or 6x4. The system allowed you to put up multiple schemes on that 1 monitor. You could for instances have 1 scheme for all the outside traffic; another scheme for when the employees were on break and another when employees were coming on shift or leaving. I would minimize the screen view schemes I did not need; and bring them up when needed. This arrangement allowed you to be watching only the most important scheme for the time of day.

I don't know what the "official number" would be. We also had an operation at corporate that allowed video/audio in ALL of their retail stores; my guess is over 100 stores. There were times when they had only 3 people on duty to watch ALL stores (not very effective IMO.) I guess what I'm saying it that you should be able to prioritize cameras being watched depending on the time of day or situation.

[LARMGUY]

http://www.blackhat.com/presentation...Mind-PAPER.pdf

more good links at the bottom of this article.