Volume 4
the Gulf of Mexico’s deep-water activities. In addition to being
the premier service base for the Gulf’s tremendous domestic
hydrocarbon supply, Port Fourchon is the land base for Louisiana Offshore Oil Port (LOOP), which handles 10 percent of
imported oil.
Port security and the police have their work cut out for them,
ensuring the nation’s oil supply, the workers and vessels, and
every piece of equipment used to transport the product, are
kept secure on a day-to-day basis.
The previous surveillance system, installed more than a decade ago, was not up to the standards required by the Port for
its new C4 installation. Many members of the Port’s security
department and police force experienced difficulties with the
old video system for its less-than-user-friendly interface, slow
feeds, minimal storage and need for more cameras.
“We all agreed that our new video management system should
be easy to integrate and allow us to dovetail with our legacy
equipment while having an opportunity to shop around for upgraded hardware without any proprietary restrictions,” stated
April Danos, Director of IT, Port Fourchon. “The ability to scale
up over the years to increase the port’s protection was another
very important aspect that needed to be addressed with the
incoming VMS solution.”
Key points in the port’s request for proposals included a system
with minimal maintenance requirements, video display in real
time, user-friendly operation and the ability to easily integrate
a variety of already installed and soon-to-be-installed components: new servers, cameras, and analytics software, for instance.
GLPC-C4
Priority 5’s Touch Assisted Command and Control System
(TACCSTM) powers the Port’s C4 system. TACCS is an allhazards command and control operations platform that integrates the VMS inputs with other data feeds to support the
Port’s security and situational awareness requirements. Developed in response to requirements by the Department of Defense, the platform aligned with Port Fourchon’s vision for a
centralized system into which all elements would be integrated,
providing directors and police with full coverage of the analytics, radar, access control and security systems. With input
from the Port and other early adopters, TACCS and the C4
system have evolved over the years, and now provide wide
area situational awareness and response capabilities to Port
Fourchon’s Harbor Police dispatchers, Lafourche Parish Sheriff’s Office, the parish EOC, LOOP, and the Port Administrative,
Operations and IT departments.
“Our goal is to enable the Port to use TACCS and its open architecture to create the most comprehensive and flexible situational awareness solution possible,” said Joe Kammerman,
Vice President of Priority 5. “Working with other companies
such as Milestone that design their solutions around open architectures has proven to create a real value to customers, especially in today’s environment where budgets are tighter and
people need to do more with less.”
“Many companies claim to provide an integrated system, but
what they deliver is more likely to consist of a large number of
windows scattered on a screen, without any data integration,”
May 2016 Edition
noted Danos. “Milestone’s integration of video management
and very detailed analytics literally gives our operators one
single data feed through which the port’s entire surveillance
system can be readily accessed as needed. We don’t miss a
beat, which is priority number one when dealing with the safety
of those at the port.”
The Technical Solution’s Setup
Several C4 stations throughout the port contain command centers equipped with Milestone: three within the main office in
Galliano, LA, one setup two miles from the port in the harbor
police headquarters and one in the port itself. The LOOP system is networked into the Milestone software and Lafourche
Parish Sherriff’s Office, with access to the port’s live feeds.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is also
connected to the port for cases of emergency.
Each registered user in the port security team has immediate
access to Milestone video archives, going back as far as two
months.
“We have a good mixture of different makes and models of
camera hardware and different analytics strategically deployed. We are very pleased with the way Milestone’s open
platform enables us to explore multiple opportunities without
worry of technology being rejected or reworking our entire system,” continued Danos. “All of the systems we implement in
the port are brought in with the security factor in mind. Milestone has been very impressive as we adapt our system to
improve operations every day.”
All of the port’s surveillance systems work in unison with a behavior analytics system. Milestone is the only interface that can
process this large amount of information, according to Bruce
Whitaker of BRS Labs. “Alerts come right through the port’s
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