Case Study: Houston First Corporation achieves smarter city-wide situational awareness with Milestone Systems

Houston First develops Smart City tech initiatives

Houston First Corporation faced a major public-safety challenge when large events like the Super Bowl Live festival brought massive crowds across multiple venues, overwhelming normal security operations and creating the need for real-time situational awareness for city agencies. Working with Milestone Systems and partners, Houston First used Milestone XProtect® Corporate VMS and XProtect® Smart Wall as part of its Houston Living Lab initiative.

Milestone Systems helped Houston First create a video technology R&D lab to test and deploy smart city solutions in an active environment, integrating 600+ cameras with analytics, traffic, audio, perimeter, and drone-tracking technologies. The result was faster installation of new capabilities, better visibility across command centers, and the ability to spot risks proactively—such as wrong-way vehicles, crowding, and suspicious sounds—while improving public safety and city operations.

Houston First Corporation

Timothy Smith

Vice president of Information Technology