BIRMINGHAM, England /PRNewswire/ -- Orsus, a pioneer in the field of situation management—a new holistic approach to optimizing situation planning, response, and analysis—is in the process of deploying its Situator product suite at Transnet Freight Rail, one of the largest international rail operators based in South Africa, focusing on carrying freight, containers, and passengers throughout the country.
The project, now underway, is connecting three nerve centers in Johannesburg, Richard's Bay, and Cape Town, South Africa, with thousands of surveillance cameras, digital video recorders, access-control systems, fire systems, and electrical fence sensors deployed across 34,000 km of rails at more than 1000 remote sites. Transnet sites include terminals, depots, office buildings, and other remote facilities throughout South Africa.
"This project is part of a major undertaking by Transnet to implement an enterprise-level security and safety system that protects our passengers, rail systems, facilities, and employees," said Kay Nayager, Security Technology Manager, Transnet Freight Rail. "Orsus and its Situator solution is a critical component of this project, enabling Transnet to effectively manage all security systems and provide the best response possible to emergency situations."
An additional aspect of the project involves integrating Situator with a Barco video wall system. Transnet's national nerve center in Johannesburg features a 19 m (62 ft.) Barco video wall system, while Richard's Bay and Cape Town each have a 7 m (22 ft.) system. Each section of the video wall displays a video matrix of a sector in the region that is under the responsibility of a specific operator. Additional information, representing a sector's situation awareness map and incident response procedures, are displayed when a sector is in emergency operation. In addition, it is also possible to call up Barco predefined layouts automatically or on-demand directly from Situator. These layouts represent predefined scene setups that correspond to various emergency and routine situations.
Two South African-based systems integrators, SSET and Multivid, are implementing the project.
"High-risk facilities and transportation organizations demand the most forward-thinking security solutions, and early on, Transnet Freight Rail recognized the importance of having a situation management platform to address the unique manner they were planning to manage the workflow of their security organization," said Gilad Chitayat, Director of Sales at Orsus. "Orsus is proud to be able to meet these demands with Situator."
Situator is a security and safety situation management software for integrated control rooms. It creates an environment where all current and future technologies, people, and actionable tasks are fused into a unified environment performing as if it were a single coordinated entity. Situator leverages existing security investments and empowers the security personnel to manage the overload of information in control rooms by focusing the appropriate individuals on the precise data they require to manage the situation. With its advanced yet easy-to-use planning tools, Situator helps transform routine and emergency plans into actionable, adaptive tasks and procedures and integrates them with virtually any security and safety devices, management systems, dynamic data sources, and communication systems.
With Orsus' Situator, Transnet Freight Rail can integrate incident reporting, simulate security-related events for training purposes, and deploy system analysis tools to provide a comprehensive security approach. It enables Transnet Freight Rail to also improve risk management and minimize vulnerability.
Situator reduces potentially costly human error, makes it easy to establish and maintain compliance with industry and government regulations, and dramatically improves the speed and effectiveness of incident response and recovery while actually reducing operating costs.
Situator is available and fully supported in North America and around the world through a network of security and safety integrators. For more information or to request a Situator demo, contact Orsus at [email protected].
About Orsus
Orsus is a situation management pioneer. Situation management is a new holistic approach to optimizing situation planning, response, and analysis. Situator is the first comprehensive situation management software platform to unify management of the entire control room lifecycle for security, safety, and emergency services, where the risk of human error can lead to financial loss, injury, and damage to public image. With successful implementation in a variety of industries and a reputation for innovative ideas and development Orsus possesses the knowledge, experience, and determination to shape the future of situation management.
About Transnet Freight Rail
The largest division of Transnet, Transnet Freight Rail (formerly known as Spoornet) bases its core competency on the transportation of freight.
The company maintains an extensive rail network across South Africa, in excess of 34,000 km of rail track that connects with other rail networks in the sub-Saharan region, with its rail infrastructure representing about 80% of Africa's total.