Communicating the value of technology at Cleveland Transit

Sep 1, 2001 12:00 PM, By RANDY SOUTHERLAND

When Bernard Buckner arrived at the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority (GCRTA) early last year to take on the job of security systems manager, he found that he had moved into a new high-tech world.

At his previous job, at the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners, with its many court and Sheriff's Department buildings, Buckner was deeply engaged in bringing an out-of-control key system into line. The transit authority presents a different situation altogether.

“Here, we have a major access control system,” says Buckner. “We have about 750 doors that are controlled, and about 3,100 access control cards. The access system is also our fire and security system. Part of what we do is operate a major central station. We have central station operators who are constantly changing access control for new employees, employees who have been promoted, and employees who left the agency, along with [outside] contractors. We also dispatch for the Police Department.”

GCRTA operates a large system that provides public transportation — both buses and trains — throughout Ohio's biggest county and even into surrounding communities — 29 municipalities in all. The access control system must work with more than 3,000 employees — 2,000 of whom are bus and train operators — and more than 100 vendors. The system includes more than 750 buses making stops at nearly 8,500 bus shelters, and more than 100 railcars, circulating along 68 miles of track.

The nearly 60 million patrons riding the system every year pay their fares mostly in cash. In fact, more than $30 million flows through cash boxes each year — in bills and coins that demand high security.

“It creates a tremendous amount of bulk — and the other problem is a lot of flow,” says Buckner. “We have change machines, which have to be refreshed once or twice a day. Fare boxes have to be pulled and accounted for. Every time you're changing hands you're vulnerable. That's one of the things we want to keep an eye on. It's cash, it's small, and it's easily concealable.”

Security, particularly electronic security, is a vital part of protecting the transit authority's assets. Buckner has focused his attention on helping the system's 110-member police department to protect people and property.

“As you might think, our transit authority is spread out throughout the entire county,” he explains. “So you have buildings all over the place. We're getting intrusions, unauthorized access, and we're constantly sending people out to check alarms. There's a good deal of maintenance on the system, because it's a good-sized system. We're constantly working with the technicians.”

In addition, Buckner and his department operate 28 CCTV systems, used primarily for incident documentation in cash transactions. An enormous amount of cash is collected through 1,100 locked boxes. These “pinch points,” where the cash transfers are made, can be areas of great vulnerability. The cameras keep a 30-day log of the transactions.

“What we started to do since I came here is get out of analog and go into a digital technology,” says Buckner. “One of the things that is radically expensive is the labor cost of having people go out and change tapes all the time. We're putting in 30-day hard-drive machines at various places. If there's a call to review a certain area, we can now just bring up the footage on the desktop, and look at it from any terminal on the network.”

The transit authority is making the analog-to-digital transition using First Line remote viewers by Integral Technologies. The authority has already replaced three of its systems with the new technology, which allows authorized personnel to view images on a computer without having to send an officer to pick up a VCR tape.

“If there's a real question, and it's going to go to our detective bureau for criminal prosecution or to administrative sanctions, you just burn a CD copy for a buck, compared to $3-4 for an analog tape. You've got it, and it fits in a file more easily,” he explains.

These fare boxes are also vulnerable because keys are used to operate and close them. There is always the question of who has access to the boxes, and a lost mechanical key would make the entire system vulnerable.

Buckner plans to switch over to Cyberlock, a product of Videx Inc., Corvallis, Ore. Once installed, the system should allow officers to immediately lock out a lost key from the rest of the system.

Buckner is also supervising the move from older access control cards to more versatile proximity cards. This change was prompted by the need to replace the authority's rapidly-aging readers and by the timely decline in cost of these cards and systems.

While his primary expertise may be technology, Buckner's greatest challenge has been in the area of education — not only upgrading skills, but also showing personnel how to get more out of the $2 million access control system provided by Tyco Intl.

“It's just a communications issue,” explains Buckner. “I see my role as saying ‘we have a lot of technology here, and this is how you can use it. Here are the things we can provide you.’ Security breach reports are a prime example.”

In the beginning, a particular transit authority location might have as many as 90-100 unauthorized attempted entries, he recalls.

Security reports were being sent to district directors, who seldom understood what they were looking at because they were presented in a technical manner.

Now, they can understand that a breach might represent a visitor from another district whose card is not authorized, or even a transferred employee whose access levels have not been logged into the system.

Buckner's department is currently determining trends by looking at incident reports, along with distress and fire alarms. The research can be as simple as looking at an employee or vendor access card that has not been used recently.

Then they can determine whether the employee has left the authority, but that his supervisor has deleted him from the system.

The nerve center of this operation is the central station, which monitors alarms and access control, and handles dispatching. Operators in this facility answer calls from 28 fire systems and 32 duress alarms, and control access to more than 635 doors.

“One of the things that just blew me away when I got here was that none of the nine dispatchers had any formal central-station training,” Buckner says. “It was all on-the-job.”

He secured training materials from the Security Industry Association, which provides certification of central station operations. The department completed a 40-hour in-class training program for all the dispatchers, and had every employee certified in February and March of this year.

“That was the first time — and some of the people had been here more than 10 years — that they were afforded any actual central station training,” says Buckner. “This training was a joint venture of the agency and Tyco. It maximized the potential for collaboration and problem-solving relating to the system's hardware and software. Not only was it a great joint venture, but it was an extremely ambitious project, training 100 percent of the operators in just two months.”

Perhaps one of Buckner's greatest achievements at the agency was facilitating the changing perceptions about security among the organization's personnel.

“I've seen an attitude change by the organization. Security was a pain that we had to endure,” says Buckner. “Now, the people want us to review their documents, to review new construction, and they have gained a new appreciation for the security technologies. You're not just the head guard with the bigger ring of keys.”

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© 2008 Penton Media Inc.

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