The Queen Street and Fortitude Valley Malls are some Brisbane’s busiest public venues, attracting diverse crowds day and night, 7 days a week. With over 26 million people visiting the malls every year, steps have been taken to further enhance the safety of individuals and the security of property in these two locations.
Jacques Public Address system was installed in Queen Street Mall and Fortitude Valley in October, 2013. This system aims to provide immediate information dissemination to the public in order to ensure a quick response time to any situation from security personnel at central control. Key features of this system include the ability to make live public address announcements and to broadcast pre-recorded and time scheduled announcements to one, selected or all public address zones across the sites. The public address system which operates across these separate locations operate on the same network and are managed centrally. This enables security personnel to engage with persons in all or select locations.
Integration of the public address system with the sites CCTV system allows verbal warnings to be broadcast to potential troublemakers that the police have or will be called. The system ensures persons are aware ‘someone is watching’ and may deter troublemakers from further action. A series of pre-recorded messages initiated by an operator using the City Safe Graphical User Interface, in conjunction with associated camera footage can broadcast public service and warning announcements easily. The initial message; ‘Warning! You are under surveillance by Brisbane City Council City Safe Cameras’, can be followed by a further two messages advising that the police have been advised of the situation and the police will be will be attending.
The public address system also broadcasts messages relating to behaviour and law. The smoking message; ‘Please be aware that smoking in the Queen Street Mall is prohibited under the Smoke Free Places local law. Please cease smoking in the mall immediately,’ again advises the public their behaviour is being monitored, and is unsatisfactory
