Recession pushes up Liverpool visitor numbers.

There is a use for CCTV cameras after all – to prove that recession has brought more visitors to Liverpool City Centre than being named Capital of Culture!

A total of 27.1 million people were monitored by six special cameras located across the City Central Business Improvement District (BID) – which covers the heart of Liverpool City Centre from Bold Street to Mathew Street and Church Street to Lime Street – from January to June this year. An average of 5.2 million people a month have been tracked since June – with an estimated extra one million expected in December for the Christmas shopping spree. The startling figures were revealed at City Central BID’s first Annual Review this week and were immediately hailed as “a phenomenal vote of confidence” in the appeal of Liverpool, which is now ranked as one of Europe’s top 20 retail destinations and top five in the UK.

Ed Oliver, chairman of City Central BID, which represents 631 businesses across 49 acres of the city centre, said, “From any perspective the fact the city centre is attracting so many people in what is a very harsh economic climate, and without the advantage of the global spotlight we had in ’08, speaks volumes for the solid foundations that have been laid down over the past decade. “The economy over the next two-to-three years will present both public and private sector with many difficult challenges but Liverpool needs to keep focused on improving what it does well and how it tells that story. A heightened level of teamwork is needed but this presents a great opportunity for all our members and stakeholders to turn that to their and the city’s advantage.”

Pity, then, that some of the CCTV cameras that counted the visitors are likely to be turned off in the next round of spending cuts.

Closed IP TV integrates enhanced layer 2/3 switching technology, innovatively combined with self-configuration software. This has the potential to create secure, self-configuring video over IP networks where from an installation point of view no prior knowledge of IP network configuration and security is required.

In practice, through Closed IP TV, IP cameras are automatically identified and configured by the server or NVR (Network Video Recorder) as a point-to-point relationship. This means that each camera is identified by the socket it is connected to just like an analogue system. The private network of video over IP created by Closed IP TV is immune from outside hacking attack, providing vital reassurance to security managers, as it sets-up an exclusive relationship between the IP addresses of the camera and server products and the associated layer 2/3 switch.

Said Pauline Norstrom, Director of Worldwide Marketing at Dedicated Micros: "We believe, this signifies a quantum leap in the security and ease of use of video over IP solutions. Through Closed IP TV, once all products are connected together, the system is completely deterministic configuring itself and assigning IP addresses automatically as required. Crucially, as each camera is assigned a specific network port it cannot be hacked or intercepted – a potential weakness with other approaches – as the cameras are all locked down.”

Mike Newton, AD Group CEO and CTO stated: "Innovation is central to our approach to CCTV and Closed IP TV reflects this desire to push the boundaries of surveillance to deliver industry leading solutions which address real issues on the ground for customers - such as reliable and secure operation - and, crucially, provide a real return on investment."