Survey: Campuses Struggling to Manage Their Guests

University, school and hospital protection professionals want technologies that will help them better manage visitors and reach them during emergencies.

October 08, 2012 Robin Hattersley

Survey: Campuses Struggling to Manage Their Guests

More than a third of K-12 and university respondents (36%) say integration with other public safety systems is a top video surveillance challenge, but that percentage goes up to 46% for hospitals. Thirty-one percent of higher ed survey takers said many of their cameras are old and don’t capture images they can use, while 38% of K-12 respondents indicated this was an issue. By contrast, nearly half of all hospital respondents (49%) said this was one of their top video surveillance challenges.

With regard to policies and procedures that support camera systems, universities (24%) and K-12 schools (20%) are struggling the most, while only 12% of hospital respondents indicated this is a significant concern.

Two-Way Radios and Intrusion Detection

More than two-thirds of all respondents rated their two-way radios as good (42%) or excellent (25%). That being said, more than a third indicated their radios can’t interoperate with first responders from surrounding jurisdictions — a troubling fact considering interoperability is considered by many law enforcement and security professionals to be the component that can make or break first responder efforts during an emergency. Another stat that is concerning is the 14% of respondents who say their radios are not narrowbanding compliant. At the beginning of 2013, all public safety and business industrial land mobile radio systems operating in the 150-512 MHz radio bands must cease operating using 25 kHz efficiency technology, and begin operating using at least 12.5 kHz efficiency technology.

When asked about their campus’ intrusion detection systems, more than a quarter (26%) of all respondents rated theirs as somewhat or completely unacceptable. Universities were the most dissatisfied, with 18% saying their technology was somewhat unacceptable, and another 11% saying it was completely unacceptable.

To view more charts from the technology survey, click here.

Ot
her Challenges and Comments Mentioned by Respondents:

On Physical Access Control:

“[Our] contract security guard company is useless. They never leave their desks. Fire alarm annunciators go off and they casually walk over and don’t disable the alarms, which makes it difficult to communicate with colleagues. Vagrants are always in the building or sleeping in common areas. Secure doors are often ajar. People often piggyback in to secure areas. The place is completely porous thanks to the contract security guard firm and its employees.”
“There are too many areas where doors are left unsecured and there is no notification.”

On Video Surveillance:

“Within the past year, we’ve just installed the first video cameras for our college. I budgeted $175K last fiscal year and will be investing another $75-$100K this year.”
“Our vendor’s software wasn’t recording when it should have been, and the application was always crashing. We switched video management solutions this year because of it, and things are going better!”

On Emergency Notification:

“System was bought and has been on site for three years, but our IT department has been slow to roll it out to the whole campus.”
“Authority to issue immediate alerts remains at upper management level, creating delays with delivery of the message.”
“College leadership refuses to make it mandatory to join the college alert system.”

On Two-Way Radios:

“Dead zones in campus buildings.”
“Our radios are not interoperable with the facilities radios.”
“In the hospital setting, we are rated for quietness. We went to an extended mic that officers wear on either shoulder so that the volume can be turned down. Some of us have purchased ear pieces out of our own pockets to hear radio traffic better and to lower the noise, especially during the evening hours. We have experienced ‘connection’ issues with both of the external devices, both transmitting and receiving.”

Additional Comments:

“All things are doable if you have sufficient funds.”
“I represent a wide range of state supported higher education institutions. The issues you list in this survey are, to a large part, dependent on the size of the institution, however they are common amongst all institutions. One potential solution you did not list was the possibility of acquiring and managing systems in a shared services model. While shared services is generally a way to defray costs, it can also address issues such as compatibility, interoperability, and acceptance by management.”

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About the Author

Robin Hattersley, Editor-in-Chief

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Robin has been covering the security and campus law enforcement industries since 1998 and is a specialist in school, university and hospital security, public safety and emergency management, as well as emerging technologies and systems integration. She joined CS in 2005 and has authored award-winning editorial on campus law enforcement and security funding, officer recruitment and retention, access control, IP video, network integration, event management, crime trends, the Clery Act, Title IX compliance, sexual assault, dating abuse, emergency communications, incident management software and more. Robin has been featured on national and local media outlets and was formerly associate editor for the trade publication Security Sales & Integration. She obtained her undergraduate degree in history from California State University, Long Beach.