Safer train station employees with ZEPCAM

The challenge: protecting employees and travellers

In the last couple of years, the Dutch National Railways were seeing an increasing amount of violence directed towards their employees. In 2017, they registered 642 incidents and a total of 183 employees suffered injuries. Safety being an important part of the NS value proposition, this was an unacceptable situation. In order to meet that promise, they had to take measures.

In 2015, the company started a pilot with bodycams. This meant that 80 of their safety and service employees, who are mainly active at the trainstations, were equipped with bodycams. The idea was to gain experience on how travellers react to the device, while simultaneously testing different cameras. The evaluation resulted in employees feeling safer when wearing a bodycam. The devices also have a clear de-escalating effect as potential troublemakers misbehave less quickly when they realise that they are being filmed. These positive results have led to the decision to equip 700 employees with bodycams in July 2018.

Following this decision, several potential bodycam suppliers were contacted and different systems tested. The solution had to meet several challenging requirements:

• It had to be endlessly scalable, allowing hundreds of employees in different stations to record video, audio and GPS, with the possibility to grow the number of users indefinitely in the future.
• Data safety was of the utmost importance.
• The data had to go through the existing data network. This means that there were restrictions concerning data availability, the danger of overflowing the network and the negative effect to other systems on it.

The solution: ZEPCAM T2+ Bodycams

The Dutch National Railways chose the ZEPCAM T2+ solution, which is endlessly scalable, consisting of hardware and software components. Users and bodycams can be added continuously with no limitations.

The trade union and the works council both see the bodycam as a welcome measure to increase the safety of employees and travellers. However, before deployment, the NS, union and works council had to reach an agreement as to when and how the bodycams would be used. They concluded that employees should be allowed to decide for
themselves whether to turn on the camera and when. In any case, the Police and the Public Prosecution Service (OM) are free to request the images if it is necessary.

The data is safely stored on premise, encrypted, and in this case, only accessible through one secure account. The docking stations are an important part of the solution. They enable not only the fast downloading of data, but also the regulation of the amount of data that goes through the data network, ensuring that it can handle the amount of information without affecting other systems negatively. The ruggedised cameras are comfortable to wear and their robustness, long battery life and recording time, meet the requirements of the users. The integrated approach of device and software allows for fast and easy video management. In addition, ZEPCAM offers excellent customer support every step of the way, from setup, to training, to deployment.

Benefits

• An endlessly scalable solution
• Data security and privacy compliance
• Ease of use and efficiency
• Excellent customer support every step of the way

About ZEPCAM

Since 2009, ZEPCAM has been on a mission to make society safer. Today, more than 500 customers in more than 40 countries use ZEPCAM professional bodycam solutions to protect and support their frontline professionals when it really matters, and to improve the working conditions and efficiency of various frontline industries. Comprising bodycams, a video management system and hosting solutions, ZEPCAM provides frontline professionals and their managers with the tools to do their work safely and gather evidence that will stand up in court.

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