Paisley is the trainspotting capital of Scotland – but not in the way you might think.
Hidden away behind closed doors at ScotRail’s customer service centre in the town are watchful workers analysing movements at stations up and down the country.
The staff are part of the firm’s CCTV monitoring team and keep a close eye on passengers moving through their network.
Now, as part of a £2 million investment in CCTV on the railways, ScotRail is to install more cameras at 60 stations, including Barrhead, Johnstone, Lochwinnoch, Milliken Park and Paisley Gilmour Street.
The new cameras will allow those eagle-eyed workers in the customer service centre to spy on the comings and goings at stations and platforms via a mega 24-screen intelligent video wall.
The cameras will analyse movements of customers on the platform to determine if members of the public are in unsafe situations and prompt the CCTV monitoring team to alert station staff, signallers and the British Transport Police if necessary.
Everything from monitoring passenger numbers, which will assist with crowd management to behavioural analytics which can identify people lingering in stations, can be controlled via the new camera units.
It’s hoped that the new equipment will help ScotRail identify vulnerable people and reduce fatalities on the railway, as well as combating anti-social behaviour.
Michael Arnott, the firm’s customer information operations manager, said: “ScotRail is committed to ensuring Scotland’s Railway is a safe environment for our customers and our people.
“The new CCTV analytics system is designed to provide even more security and reassurance to anyone using the network.
“The introduction of this cutting-edge technology means that our customer service team will now be alerted when anyone enters into an unsafe or restricted area of the railway, allowing them to alert signallers to stop trains, if needed, which could potentially save a life.”
ScotRail has one of the largest CCTV networks in the UK, with more than 7,000 cameras monitoring over 350 stations, which the train operator remotely monitors from their two customer service centres in Paisley and Dunfermline, Fife, where they also answer calls from the station help points.
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