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Public transportation plays an important role in the lives of people everywhere – and as populations age this role will continue to grow. However, in recent years the transportation industry has become increasingly vulnerable to security risks. One of the greatest challenges is to protect train stations, where the rail industry faces a crucial need to guard passengers, employees, goods, infrastructure, and assets against possible threats. These facilities in particular have become at least as vulnerable as airports. They must therefore meet very demanding criteria with regard to security, safety, communications, and building automation – also to uphold their reputation as providers of safe, well-organized services that travelers and freight forwarders can rely on.

The security and safety risks at a train station can include vandalism and graffiti, theft, drug dealing, fire, and acts of terrorism. Managing them is a challenging task, since many different areas need to be monitored: tracks, underground passageways, bicycle and car parking areas, buildings, luggage storage facilities, and parked railway cars and engines. The lack of access restrictions at most train stations also means that there is a need for special solutions for monitoring all areas.

Human Safety: the Number One Priority
Like in many other areas of life, progress is also being made in connection with building, expanding, and modernizing train stations. Because human safety takes absolute priority, the only responsible choice is to take advantage of the best available state-of-the-art technologies – like the products available from Bosch Security Systems. They are ideal for meeting the security, safety, and communication requirements of train stations.

Security, Safety and Effective Communication for Train Stations
Train stations comprise diverse outdoor and indoor facilities, many of which are accessible at all hours. They therefore face daunting security issues. The security challenges include:

• Preventing and/or responding to diverse acts of terrorism such as bombings, bomb threats, suicide attacks, and sabotage
• Dealing with the fire and explosion risks associated with the on-site storage of flammable liquids
• Identifying and checking abandoned bags
• Access control for restricted areas
• In dangerous situations, quickly getting people to safety in an organized way

When these challenges are successfully met, it gives employees and passengers confidence in the safety of train stations and the railway system.

Bosch Products and Solutions
Bosch offers a wide range of products and solutions for effectively managing security, safety, and communications at train stations. They let you:

• Efficiently monitor all areas and activities to immediately detect fires, emergencies, and threats
• Detect potentially dangerous individuals before they can cause any trouble
• Make public announcements to inform travelers of arriving and departing trains and, for example, remind them not to leave bags unattended
• Conduct fast, controlled evacuations
• Integrate all safety, security, and communications solutions in a building management system for central monitoring and control
• Monitor all approaches to the station

You can count on solutions from Bosch to meet your challenges, no matter how complex, with customized security based on intelligent functionality and modular concepts that grow with your needs.

In order to protect lives and property at train stations, it is vital to quickly detect, locate, verify, and contain fires. Station halls can pose special challenges, with their crowds, high ceilings, large open areas, and considerable distances to emergency escape routes.

Bosch modular fire panels and detectors are ideal for this and more. They apply multiple intelligent criteria to ensure early, reliable detection – with high immunity to false alarms – and fast responses. A large number of detectors can be connected in loops of up to 3,000 m and networked to cover multiple buildings and structures.

The panels automatically notify the local fire department, in addition to interfacing with sprinkler, ventilation, and public address systems as well as the Building Integration System (BIS) from Bosch to fight fire events of all kinds and coordinate the evacuation of large groups of people.

Defending train stations from terrorism focuses on dealing with anonymously phoned-in bomb threats, explosive devices concealed in parked cars, trash cans along platforms, luggage, or lockers. The ability to manage these safety and security risks is crucial. Bosch Advanced Intelligent Video Analysis (IVA) enables early detection of suspicious behavior and identification of abandoned luggage and bags left innocently unattended. Tracking cameras can help verify or disprove alarms, alerting a security operator as appropriate.
A “forensic search” function permits fast retrieval of relevant video sequences.

The same approach can be used to monitor access points such as turnstiles. If an unauthorized person enters, a security operator is alerted, and video sequences are captured for identification and use as evidence. The Video Management System from Bosch enables complete management of all video surveillance components.

Train tracks pose major risks, resulting in the death or serious injury of thousands of people a year. Children can play alongside tracks and get too close to passing trains. Persons can take shortcuts across tracks and be hit. Animals such as cattle or deer can provoke collisions. Intelligent Video Analysis can guard against all of these risks by establishing a “Virtual Perimeter Fence” that, if crossed, alerts a security operator. Cameras can then be used to check the situation and enable appropriate action, for instance notifying train drivers in time to prevent accidents.

Bosch offers a complete range of intrusion alarm panels and detectors for all types of applications. These ensure increased security outside operating hours while delivering added value in combination with Bosch’s CCTV systems for advanced video verification in case an intrusion alarm is triggered.

Bosch’s award-winning sensors use advanced motion detection technology to offer maximum protection from intrusion in all types of premises, while minimizing costly false alarms. Highly reliable and stylishly designed, they offer unrivalled signal processing capabilities. The Professional Series intrusion detectors use the revolutionary sensor data fusion approach and comply fully with all current EU regulations.

Our product range also covers innovative control panels that meet your needs. Versatile transmission solutions communicate via landline and cellular telephony, GSM, radio, Internet or intranet and can be integrated into existing systems.

An IP-based access control system from Bosch is ideal for keeping unauthorized individuals from entering restricted areas such as train maintenance facilities, ticket offices, mailrooms, and luggage storage areas. It supports a large range of readers, and integration with video surveillance makes it possible to capture and record access events. Access violations automatically trigger an alarm.

We have solutions for all requirements: from the Access Easy Controller, a complete system designed for simplicity and small applications, all the way to the Access Personal Edition, a software package that is used in combination with the intelligent and scalable Access Modular Controller starting with small and midsize enterprises.

The Access Modular Controller is also used in combination with the Access Engine from the Building Integration System (BIS) to meet the requirements of the most demanding projects in terms of size and complexity.

This modularity lets you systematically build the right solution to meet all your access control needs and flexibly scale it up as they grow.

High-quality public address and voice evacuation systems are essential for making announcements and dealing with security and safety challenges such as evacuating individual platforms or the entire station. They also need to be integrated with existing railway databases, software, and security systems.

Public address and emergency sound systems from Bosch are ideal for everything from routine to emergency announcements – always with maximum reliability and speech intelligibility. The Praesideo digital public address and emergency sound system from Bosch is suitable for even the largest train stations. A daisy-chain optical system bus permits the use of distributed equipment racks. There are built-in monitoring capabilities and redundancy features including a system bus loop and automatic activation of a spare amplifier when required. Because most stations are located in densely populated areas, announcements must normally be loud to be understood. At night, however, this would disturb nearby residents. Praesideo therefore supports automatic adjustment of the volume to the ambient noise level.

With all of the security, safety, communication and building automation systems that can be installed in a train station, it is a challenge to efficiently manage and coordinate them all.

The Building Integration System (BIS) from Bosch provides a single Web-based cockpit for monitoring all security, safety, and building management systems. This includes alarm management, fast alarm pinpointing via location maps, and follow-up procedures. It also seamlessly integrates fire and intrusion alarms, as well as evacuation, access control, CCTV and building automation systems.

Use of the BIS lets a single operator monitor and control all security systems, in addition to enabling faster responses to emergencies and greater overall effectiveness.