Case Study: City of Calgary achieves enhanced passenger safety and scalable centralized transit surveillance with Genetec Omnicast

City of Calgary’s Light Rail Transit system employs Genetec’s Omnicast video surveillance platform to keep passengers safe

The City of Calgary’s Light Rail Transit (CTrain) system, which serves about 95 million passenger trips annually across 38 stations, faced an end-of-life analog CCTV system that could not scale or integrate with modern operations. City officials sought an open-platform, IP-based video solution that would integrate with their large monitor wall, support distributed monitoring across multiple stations, and meet strict procurement requirements — a need that led them to select Genetec and its Omnicast video surveillance platform.

Genetec’s Omnicast (implemented by integrator Contava) was rolled out across the CTrain in a nine‑month retrofit, deploying 471 Panasonic megapixel dome cameras plus 23 PTZs, Panasonic IP encoders, and Dell R510/R410 servers with distributed archiving and a redundant core network. The system delivers 30 FPS recording for 30 days across the network, is monitored by three operators on a two-by-nine monitor array, and has measurably improved image quality, evidence retrieval and law‑enforcement response times while providing scalable, lower per‑camera costs and greater operational flexibility — benefits attributed to Genetec’s platform.

City of Calgary

Colin Adderley

Project Manager and Engineer