City of Burnside, South Australia
Key Metrics
3 days saved per month: Better operational efficiency through automatic firmware and software updates and faster investigations.
Faster investigations: With 24/7 remote access to live and recorded video, staff can respond to incidents and information requests in minutes instead of hours.
Overview
The City of Burnside is a municipal council area in the south-eastern corner of Adelaide, South Australia. Established as one of Adelaide’s oldest residential regions, it is known for its tree-lined streets and abundant parks. The council covers 28 suburbs across approximately 30 square kilometers, serving over 46,000 residents. This community offers a wide range of facilities and services, making it one of Adelaide’s most pleasant places to live or visit.
Challenges
Despite its vibrant community, the City of Burnside’s legacy CCTV system was limiting its ability to effectively monitor and secure council assets. The network was a mix of incompatible cameras and recorders, with various devices that couldn’t seamlessly integrate with the rest of the council’s monitoring infrastructure.
“Our previous CCTV systems were a combination of different devices, many of which were outdated and no longer supported,” said Dario Brko, Data and Cyber Security Administrator. “This made maintenance cumbersome and significantly slowed down the process of retrieving footage.”
Additionally, footage requests were time-consuming, requiring staff to manually search through hours of recordings. The lack of remote access and centralised search capabilities meant investigations took longer than necessary, impacting response times and operational efficiency.
Solution
To address these challenges, the City of Burnside worked with Compnow to implement Verkada’s cloud-managed security camera system across all its sites. Verkada cameras were installed at every council facility, both indoors and outdoors, with dedicated viewing stations set up to monitor key locations in real time.
By shifting to Verkada, the City of Burnside gained a unified, modern security solution with key features including:
Centralised cloud management: All cameras are managed through Verkada’s cloud-based interface, Command, giving the IT team a unified dashboard to view and control footage across all 28 suburbs in real time. This centralised management replaced the fragmented legacy setup with one intuitive system accessible from anywhere.
Automatic firmware updates: Verkada’s devices receive continuous, automatic firmware updates, ensuring devices stay up-to-date with the latest security and performance improvements with minimal manual effort. This approach means the council’s cameras are always running optimally without burdening IT staff.
Advanced video analytics: Powerful analytics tools enable staff to quickly locate specific footage by filtering for attributes like motion or time, instead of manually scrubbing through hours of video. With Verkada, investigators can pinpoint the exact incident of interest in minutes, drastically reducing the time spent on footage review.
Seamless identity integration: Command integrates with the City of Burnside’s identity provider for single sign-on and user management. This integration streamlines access control – staff use their existing council credentials to securely log in – and ensures that administrators can easily manage permissions as staff roles change.
“The ability to access footage remotely and quickly pinpoint the exact moment we need has been a game-changer,” Dario added. “It has dramatically improved the speed and efficiency of our security operations.”
Together, these capabilities modernised the City’s surveillance infrastructure, replacing the fragmented legacy setup with an intuitive, cloud-based system that is easier to manage, more secure, and significantly more efficient.
Impact
With Verkada, the City of Burnside has transformed its security infrastructure, improving both operational efficiency and security coverage:
Faster response and investigations: With 24/7 remote access to live and recorded video, staff can respond to incidents and information requests much more quickly than before. For example, locating and retrieving a specific piece of footage – a task that once could take hours – now happens in minutes. This accelerated video retrieval means investigators and council officials can address inquiries or security events in a fraction of the time, improving overall response times.
Enhanced security coverage: By installing cameras at all council sites, Burnside now enjoys comprehensive monitoring across its facilities. This unified coverage has improved safety and situational awareness throughout the community. Council buildings, community centers, and public spaces are monitored on one platform, deterring vandalism and unauthorised activities with a visible, consistent security presence.
Operational efficiency: The new system has also streamlined day-to-day operations. City personnel leverage live camera feeds for routine tasks, saving valuable time and resources. For instance, customer service staff in the library can quickly check on front-desk queues via camera instead of walking over, and community coordinators remotely monitor activity at rentable venues without driving to each site. These efficiencies allow staff to focus on serving the public rather than managing technology, translating into better service delivery and productivity gains – ultimately saving an average of 3 days per month
“Library and customer service staff can check front-desk queues remotely instead of having to walk over,” said Dario. “Community coordinators can monitor venues available for hire without visiting them in person, saving valuable time.”
Future Plans
Encouraged by the success of the new CCTV platform, the City of Burnside is looking to further expand Verkada’s use for environmental protection initiatives.
“We are exploring the use of Verkada cameras to monitor and prevent environmental vandalism,” Dario said. “These cameras provide advanced surveillance capabilities, making them an excellent choice for protecting our environment. By deploying Verkada cameras in areas prone to illegal dumping or graffiti, we aim to ensure real-time detection and response.”
Additionally, the council is confident in Verkada’s scalability, allowing them to easily expand the system as needed.
“The implementation process was straightforward, and scaling the system is just as easy,” Dario added. “Adding new cameras is seamless, making future expansions effortless.”
With Verkada’s cloud-based security solutions, the City of Burnside continues to enhance its ability to safeguard public spaces while improving operational efficiency.
