Just as the construction industry is changing and adapting to new ways of doing business through AI-powered software, so is the security market, along with most other partners. And, AI has particular value when it comes to addressing crime and theft and other ongoing construction site issues.
That’s as the 2024 “Unseen Threats: Construction Crime Index” reports that 70% of construction workers witness on-site thefts. With theft such a common crime, it is often overlooked, but with soaring insurance rates and industry demands to do more, there are new approaches.
In a traditional work environment, a standard CCTV system can monitor offices and corridors, alerting the security team if it sees something out of the ordinary. On a construction site, activity is constant, vehicles and workers come and go at pace, and it can be hard for the security system to identify a risk from business as usual.
AI Analytics Improves CCTV Coverage and Value
Using construction surveillance cameras, powered by AI software, CCTV systems can learn what is typical site behaviour and ignore it. While using AI features like real-time threat detection to spot suspicious or abnormal activity. Examples include people loitering, trying to access off-limits locations,with the AI reporting the threat live to enable security to react.
While security gets a better picture of the site from AI, this also helps reduce calls to false alarms, especially compared to old systems that had trouble with wind, changing light, animals and other factors triggering an unnecessary alarm.
Depending on the CTV solution, the AI software can also provide image improvements to help security identify a suspect. Features like automatic image enhancement, noise reduction, and even super-resolution can point out the individual in the crowd, provide a clearer image of their face and clothing, and even track them across multiple cameras.
Better image quality can also help if there’s a need for a public appeal in the wake of a construction site crime. So many existing CCTV system images are low quality that criminals think that they have little to fear from them. But as enhanced images become the norm, erasing shadows, identifying body shapes and providing accurate height and other information, CCTV will become more of a deterrent.
AI is Always on Alert for Construction Security and Safety Incidents
Wider benefits to the business include greater cost efficiency, with security teams able to spend more time on the ground, responding to incidents. While AI should never totally replace human oversight, security management will find a better balance of resources. The AI can also improve through experience and updates, adding further value over time, and making a wholesale CCTV update less likely.
Artificial intelligence can also come to the fore beyond crime. Its predictive capabilities can support the Identification of construction health and safety risks, noting where heavy machinery or loads and workers coincide unsafely. With loudspeaker-equipped systems, the AI can provide an audio message or warning immediately, potentially preventing injuries.
It can also be used to investigate any potential or actual incident, and support training to highlight the risks and mitigating action. Similarly, it can identify unsafe actions or practices, using AI to catalogue trends and patterns in behaviour to prevent site incidents.
Additional benefits of modern sensors backed by AI include facial recognition to identify both authorised and unauthorised people on-site, number plate recognition to help investigate thefts and monitoring safety areas such as under lifts, behind cargo drop areas and so on.
The People-power Value of AI
AI can support security workers by reducing the volume of admin required for compliance reporting, health and safety data tracking, and other data-related parts of the job. Providing clearer, more accurate and timely reports for leadership can also identify issues they need to address faster.
Add to that the ability to get security on the scene faster with more useful and relevant information, and on-site problems can be addressed faster, reducing the risk of an incident. And at night, when workers are at their lowest diurnal ebb, AI remains resolute and on guard to identify risks.
By protecting workers, disrupting crime and preventing accidents, modern CCTV with AI adds value across multiple areas of the construction site, especially as wider automation takes hold across the industry, AI cameras can link to:
- Other security systems to identify access issues.
- Work with delivery tracking to ensure the construction schedule is maintained.
- Report issues that staff did not notice or choose not to notify.
All of this supports the workload of the security team, allowing them to focus on the areas that AI doesn’t yet support. And, as AI gets better over the coming years, it will add further value to the team, becoming a valued asset that operators and workers appreciate.
