Transportation

Esprit on Patrol in Istanbul, Turkey
by Orhan Aksel, MGS & Cheryl Spangler, International Marketing Manager, cspangler@pelco.com

Istanbul, famously romantic and beautiful, is the only city in the world spread over two continents. Sharing land in both Europe and Asia as well as a border with Bulgaria, Istanbul is a city rich in history. In fact, two of the most powerful Empires, the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires, at one time ruled this land.

Centuries ago, horses and kayiks – small boats used to cross the Bosporus – were adequate means of transportation; in modern-day Istanbul, however, more than 10 million people commute inter-continentally on a daily basis. Two thousand years of urban activity have transformed small old roads into modern highways and have changed the complexion of the city. Istanbul has highdensity traffic flow, which can be dramatically improved with the use of effective, real-time video security monitoring for the manual manipulation of traffic signals. That is exactly what the City of Istanbul accomplished by installing Pelco Esprit units throughout the city!

The City of Istanbul (ISBAK) had established prerequisites for their installation. Speed, endurance against high winds, and low maintenance were only a few of the high-standard requirements. Pelco and MGS fit their specifications perfectly and the Esprit ES31C22 was selected to bring improvement to the congestion in Istanbul. As required, the system assists the traffic authorities to manually switch the traffic lights, change the duration of the traffic lights, and notify drivers on digital traffic warning boards. Live images of a few of the Istanbul junctions can be viewed at http://www.ibb.gov.tr/istanbultr/310/310indeks.htm.

Currently, Esprit units in operation are installed either on high transmission poles or on high-rise buildings controlling various major arteries. This number will reach 60 junctions by the end of 2003 and expand to 200 by the end of 2004. Video transmission of the system is done through a microwave network. MPEG-4 workstations are accommodated at camera locations, which link the images to the microwave network.

On the controlling side of the surveillance portion of the Traffic Management System, a Pelco System 9740 is in charge. Additionally, live pictures are linked to television stations for morning and evening news. The Pelco 9760 is used for this video distribution task.

Having proven the effectiveness and efficiency of the Esprit on the Istanbul-Ankara mountain passageway, Esprit units are waltzing around Istanbul skies, serving to reduce accidents and save lives.

MGS, the exclusive representative of Pelco in Turkey, has recently been awarded installations with some of the largest industries and companies in Turkey. MGS has increased their Pelco sales by 175 percent since 2001, demonstrating the growing presence of Pelco in this progressive and industrialized country.