Israeli municipality ready to handle any situation with its Kramer-equipped Command & Control Center

Background

Ramat Gan is a city in central Israel, located just east of Tel Aviv. With a population of over 150,000, home to a central medical center, the National Diamond Exchange, and many high-tech industries, it’s a major metropolis.

In addition to providing routine civil services like education, firefighting, and garbage collection, the municipality must be prepared to handle any emergency that emerges, whether a natural disaster such as an earthquake or flood, or a safety and security event, such as a terrorist attack or mass transit incident.

Goals

The Security Department and the mayor requested a new Command & Control center to enable the city management team to monitor and coordinate the municipality’s activities on a day-to-day basis and in emergencies.

Kobi Noah, Ramat Gan’s CIO, recalls: “We wanted to facilitate smooth operations of all municipal services under any conditions, ensure continual business operations for all parties, and support emergency services in times of need, such as engineering units working to locate dangerous buildings. At the time, the city management team worked in different locations. This new center would enable the team to control the city more effectively and assure the wellbeing of its citizens, 24/7.”

To do so, all devices throughout the space needed to be connected. Easy operation was a must to ensure effective communication between the different locations. In addition, the system needed to be extremely stable over time, with zero failures. Identifying the need for a new command center as extremely urgent, the municipality set a tight four-month deadline for delivery and sought a single-source partner for the full solution.

Solution

Kramer was chosen as the supplier for Ramat Gan’s new Command & Control center, based on the city’s past successes with Kramer and the company’s high level of local support. Kramer’s ability to offer a full end-to-end solution, provide all the needed equipment from stock, and guarantee fast delivery, were also central to this decision.

With its enterprise IT-grade security and advanced intuitive management, the Kramer KDS-7 family line was selected as a perfect fit. Kramer took into account the municipality’s specific needs and built a complete solution, with a full range of networked endpoints, including KDS-7 encoders, KDS-7 decoders, and auto-switch encoders, as well as a dedicated manager device, to support 4K video sources and enable any-to-many video sharing between rooms.

Using an AVoIP network, the AV encoders and decoders were connected to the endpoints of the city’s IP network. Leveraging the switching power of the IP network eliminated the distance limits on AV deployments. This simple and reliable approach enabled the use of a huge number of devices in a single network and made expanding into new spaces easier.

Value

A highly customized, end-to-end proof-of-concept setup was built in Kramer’s lab before the installation, enabling Kramer and the integration team to tackle any challenges ahead of time. Kramer also quickly created a full topology diagram of the project in advance to accelerate the bill of materials (BOM) process.

Although the deadline was extremely tight, with immense dedication on everyone’s part, it took just four months from design until the Command & Control center was up and running 24/7.

Ramat Gan municipality now operates 11 different control rooms (one for each department) from a single space, spread out over two floors. Most of the rooms are simple, with one or two operators, a few displays, and a worktable, while others are like boardrooms, with many participants. One large room is reserved for the mayor to lead any critical situation that may occur.

Utilizing a full AVoIP streaming solution, the staff of this new Command & Control center enjoys a low-latency, high-quality 4K60 content distribution and switching. This ensures a highly secure, deeply functional Command & Control center that’s able to effectively provide services under any conditions, at any time, with zero failures.

“We have 120 AVoIP endpoints spread over two floors. Ten assemblies reflect each wing of the municipality, and one central assembly,” explains Eyal Bracha, Ramat Gan’s Deputy CIO. “Everyone sits in their place, and any computer can be brought up with the click of a button so the mayor, city manager, or any relevant party can control the computer, and immediately assess the current situation.”

Digital signage is dispersed throughout the facility to share special announcements for the Command & Control staff. Full control of the system is maintained with various touch panels located throughout the facility. The specific audio DSP-AEC prerequisites are handled with a sophisticated touch panel user interface for control, ensuring excellent audio transmission between rooms.

On top of that, the municipality was impressed by the experience of working with Kramer. “We took KDS-7 to the edge in terms of operation and programming,” elaborates Eyal. “Nothing like this has ever been done here in Israel. And I can honestly say that Kramer’s performance across the board has left us amazed.”

Summing up the project, Kobi says: “The service that Kramer gave us has definitely earned our praise and solidified our desire to build a strategic partnership with them for many years to come. For other Command & Control centers thinking about what matrixes or technological solutions they need, from a professional perspective, I highly recommend opting for Kramer.”