The crimes most often committed on gas station are drive-off gas thefts and lifts of various car accessories or other things being sold at the station. An increasing number of armed robberies at the stations is related mostly with relatively big sums of money, collected in cash registers and safes, and inadequate protection of those places. Small number of employees - often one person, and big distance from the police station or monitoring center make the stations an easy aim for common thieves and organized criminal groups.

An alarm system protects the station mainly from burglaries, but not from direct thefts, happening during opening hours (often round the clock), when every potential perpetrator may come in. Apart from thefts of gas and offered goods, there should be taken into consideration possible stealing from customers cars and acts of vandalism.

Well designed and reliable video surveillance system is one of the main factors that can improve safety levels at every gas station. Lower prices for more advanced solutions make such system very cost-effective nowadays.

Before we start to design a system, we should consider what we really want to monitor and record.

The answer should be: person's appearance and facial features, and car's details (make, color and registration number). Having these guidelines in mind, we can plan deployment of the needed cameras.

There should be monitored the locations where cars drive in and stop, the pumps, the entrance to the shop, the interior of the shop, cash desk/s, and the exit.

The observation area should be confined to the car standing by the pump. It will enable to get detailed images including the registration number and driver's features. It is also important, when the pumps are located in one row, to apply two cameras - one on the front and the second at the back. Such arrangement will prevent blocking the view of the second car. The camera/s should be mounted at optimal height allowing, at one hand, good visibility of registration plates, and at the other hand - protection against damaging.

Observation of the cars driving in and out is a good solution because not every car will get gas. Some cars may be parked outside the monitored area and the driver or passengers will only buy something in the shop. Monitoring of the entrance/exits solves the problem - but the cameras should be placed close enough to them.

There are preferred cameras located just at the entrance and exit, but in a case of troubles with e.g. laying the cables, there may be used more distant cameras with long focal lenses (telephoto lenses). Together with it, there should be applied a way of reducing the area of observation by adequate narrowing the access and exit lanes.

It can be realized e.g. by arranging some limiters like concrete or metal posts, putting up a barrier etc. The aim of the solution is to minimize the camera's field of view, which allows for recording even small details.

Even medium-size gas station usually offers shopping, car washing, minor repairs etc. Monitoring of all the places requires employing of a number of cameras and a multiplexer or similar application enabling simultaneous viewing and recording of all images.

A typical installation made according to the above guidelines, may consist of:

Example of surveillance system for petrol station.

Cameras. Taking into consideration the kind of monitored places and objects (people - their appearance and facial features, vehicles - make, color, registration number), we should apply sensitive color cameras featuring high resolution and control of auto-iris lens. Areas with low lighting levels require to use day/night cameras.

Cameras with Super Wide Dynamic sensor or having HIGH LUM CANCEL function (elimination of overexposed places - they are being blackened) are ideal devices for deployment in all locations where there is a possibility of direct dazzling by headlights of the cars.

A universal camera that fulfills all that requirements is SN-587C/A/10 M11205. It belongs to the group of the most advanced cameras using Super Wide Dynamic image sensors. They are practically insensitive to overexposure and underexposure in fragments of an image, caused both by direct or reflected light, and strong backlight. The image will enable to distinguish details both in bright and dark areas. The camera has very useful NightVision function.

When the function is activated, the camera switches into B/W mode in low-light conditions. It eliminates excessive noise in the image that would appear in such situation. Due to 480 TVL horizontal resolution, the camera belongs to high resolution group.

Lenses. At gas stations there have to be used lenses with automatic iris (Auto Iris - AI). Lens with AI enables to match fixed proportion of light falling on image sensor, no matter the illumination conditions are, by opening or closing the iris. Keeping constant CCD illumination, regardless of external illumination, the camera can operate in extreme illumination conditions (in strong sunlight and poor lighting at night). Additionally, it guaranties that the picture from camera will not be overexposed by headlights or light reflected from other surfaces.

Because of small difference in price between fixed and variable focal length lenses it's worth to apply the latter. They enable quick and easy adjustment of the field of view.

An important component of outdoor camera camera is housing equipped with heater and thermostat, and durable bracket. During housing selection, one should pay attention to next significant detail - the rainshield, protecting also from direct sunlight.

Auxiliary equipment:

- universal camera satisfying all requirements for work at gas station

Cameras with SWD Pixim sensor are resistant to overexposure of images caused by strong light, including front, reflected and rear excessive illumination.

- Day/Night camera

The color camera SN-468C provides better results in the night even in comparison with B/W camera.

- camera with increased resolution

Analyzing conditions of monitoring at gas stations, it is worth taking into consideration the newest cameras having HIGH LUM CANCEL - function that eliminates overexposed places - they are being blackened when the level exceeds set value. The example: M1126.

Another step of system's design is selection of devices for recording and playing back the recorded video material and watching live and recorded images from cameras.

Digital systems, i.e. IP solutions that are suitable for gas/petrol stations, include easy to mount and operate DVRs with network modules, which enable remote monitoring and recording.

DVRs

It's worth to pay attention for selection of monitor with proper diagonal. If the monitor is to be used sporadically, only for viewing recorded video, then 12"-15" diagonal is enough. In the case of real time observation, there is preferred a larger 20" monitor.

Choice of monitors

The surveys find that round-the-clock monitoring and recording at gas stations practically eliminates muggings, damaging of pumps, toilets etc., drive-off thefts. The stations have indeed become "no smoking area", at last. The owners have noticed increased number of customers in station bars/restaurants. Simply the customers are not afraid to park their cars on monitored parking lots.

Summing up, application of this kind of system significantly increases safety at every gas station. The cameras and "Monitored area" signs have themselves psychological influence on potential perpetrates, as well as discipline the staff.