CAM-53

On foot through the truck gate

The vehicle gate of a construction site in the middle of a city: the control cabin, the barriers and the traffic lights of the entry lane. A concrete mixer truck is coming in at that moment, with another truck waiting behind it. A line of people is walking across right in front of the mixer's nose: two of them have helmets and hi-vis vests on, one has a vest but no helmet, and five more are bare-headed with nothing reflective on. On the right, the container with the mandatory-kit signs, the barriers and a cone.

CAM-53 · VEHICLE GATE · ON FOOT IN LANE

What IRIS understands

What it recognises in this scene

on foot in the lane
bare head
no helmet, no vest
concrete mixer truck
full kit on

The rule

You decide once. IRIS applies it always.

somebody on foot crosses the vehicle entry lane, and on top of that has no helmet or no vest on

Then

alert the access control point with the camera, the lane and the time
flag it as urgent if a truck is coming in or going out at that moment
log how often it happens and in which time band, to find out whether a walking route is missing

The instruction that set it up«Tell me if somebody walks in through the truck gate, and all the more so if he has no helmet on: nobody should be crossing there on foot.»

What changes

What changes for whoever answers for the site

The truck gate is the worst place on the whole site for visibility: the driver sits high, the bonnet is long and there is a blind wedge in front where he sees nobody. If people also cross there because it is the short cut to the changing rooms, the mix is complete. Today this rests on the gate keeper, who is at the same time handling delivery notes, raising the barrier and answering the phone. With IRIS the alert arrives while the person is in the lane, and it arrives flagged urgent if a truck is coming through at that moment. It also leaves a count of how often it happens and at what hours, and that number usually says something uncomfortable: the walking route is in the wrong place and needs moving. Fixing the gate is what actually removes the risk; the alert only covers the hole in the meantime.

What people usually ask

Isn't the 'no pedestrians' sign enough on its own?

The 'no pedestrians' sign is necessary, but it is not enough: in this very picture the sign is up and people cross anyway. A sign tells you once; a camera looks every time. What IRIS adds is not replacing the sign, it is knowing how often people ignore it, at what hour and where, and warning while it is happening. That count is what lets you decide whether the walking route needs moving or a fence needs putting up, which is the real fix.

Can this be used to discipline the worker who crossed?

No, this cannot be used to discipline the worker who crossed, because IRIS does not identify anyone. It detects that there is a person on foot in the truck lane and that this person has no helmet on; it does not detect WHO that person is, it does not recognise faces, it does not compare them against any database and it does not cross-check them with clock-in records. The alert is about a place and a moment, not about somebody. If a site started using the system to point at individuals, that site would stop using it within a fortnight, and that is the opposite of what we are after.

Does it tell somebody walking through apart from a driver stepping down from his truck?

Yes, and it has to, because otherwise the alert fires twenty times a day and stops being useful. The driver who steps down from the cab, hands over the paperwork and climbs back up is doing his job and is not an incident. The rule is drawn on the image: you mark the lane, you leave out the bay where the trucks pull up, and you ask for the person to be there a few seconds and to have come in from the street. That keeps the alert for what actually worries you: somebody walking in through the gate the trucks use.

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