Police will now be able to access live video and audio feeds inside of Denver buses, the Regional Transportation District announced Tuesday.
As part of a plan to increase safety on public transportation, RTD officials announced Tuesday that live look-in equipment had been installed inside all RTD buses, allowing police dispatchers to both see and hear people, situations and events occurring onboard in real-time.
“The live look-in system presents staff and police with a more granular level of detail as they respond to and resolve emergencies,” RTD’s CEO Debra Johnson stated in a news release Tuesday. “It is imperative that the public feels safe and secure on RTD buses and properties. With the addition of this system, no one is traveling alone.”
RTD began installing the live equipment on buses in 2023, using a $2.4 million grant from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the news release stated. The grant, awarded to RTD in September of 2020, paid for the live look-in software, professional services and five years of maintenance.
With the live look-in system, RTD’s public safety dispatchers will use a secure, cellular network connection to hear audio and view live video from cameras inside the bus, RTD officials said in the release. Previously, dispatchers could only access audio.
According to Israel Laufer, RTD Police Department’s integrated security systems program manager, the department pursued the project because the prior system was “approaching the end of its useful life.”
“We already had cellular connectivity onboard our vehicles and wanted to capitalize on it,” he stated in the release. “We were looking for technology innovations.”
As of Tuesday, about 19% of the agency’s light rail vehicles have had live look-in capability added, RTD officials said. The rest of the fleet will be retrofitted for live look-in equipment by June 2027.
RTD officials said the live feeds are used to observe and report serious safety hazards, where employee or customer safety may be at risk. All incidents are tracked and recorded.
“There’s nothing like a dispatcher looking at the live look-in and explaining over the radio and describing the suspect, who and where he left, what station, what location,” Laufer said. “The operator is busy driving the bus, and the live look-in system relieves the operator from focusing on a precise description.”
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Originally Published: July 23, 2024 at 2:26 p.m.
