To meet changing safety and security surveillance needs, the Montgomery County Department of Transportation (MCDOT), Montgomery County Police Department (MCPD) and the Security Services Division (SSD) recommend the installation of additional cameras within the 9 MCDOT parking garages to include coverage of all stairwells, lobbies, decks, rooftops and all pedestrian and vehicular entrances/exits to the garage. This will require the use of additional camera types such as 360-degree field of view cameras for parking deck coverage, 180-degree field of view cameras for rooftop coverage and License Plate Recognition (LPR) cameras at entrances and exits. This project will fund security installation in the Bethesda Parking Lot District.

MCDOT will conduct a security audit through the County's contracted parking consultation service to ensure that phasing is in line with industry and safety/security best practices. The MCDOT phasing of the enhancement of electronic security measures into the existing garage surveillance system will be spread out over a seven-year plan. This will phase installation and upgrades to focus on high-incident, high-traffic areas and to deter criminal and behavioral issues.

Parking Lot districts (PLDs) have camera surveillance equipment that records 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, and 365 days a year. The original purpose of installing the camera surveillance system that includes 290 cameras, was to protect County property. These camera systems are focused primarily on the pedestrian and vehicular access points, ground level elevator lobbies and payment stations located within the parking garages. The majority of the 290 cameras currently installed in PLD garages are older analog and/or IP cameras, with an image quality range that is limited to between 1.3 - 4 megapixels. These cameras operate on a legacy ViconNet and Valerus software system that is connected and accessible only on the County FiberNet.

Over the past few years there has been an increase in security incidents reported by MCDOT's contracted security patrol officers and increased requests for video footage to investigate criminal incidents that have occurred in parking garages. The number of MCPD cases supported by video footage obtained from MCDOT parking garages has increased. Not all investigations using MCDOT systems are captured in MCDOT records since MCPD, SSD, and the Records Division maintain independent access, and in some cases, MCDOT provides video evidence without a formal request. While calls for service reported in the MCPD dashboard decreased from 2023 (810) to 2024 (760), DOT-assisted cases grew from 39 in 2023 to 61 in 2024.

Additionally, camera surveillance equipment and systems in many parking garages are aging and are beyond their useful life, resulting in increased repair, replacement, and general maintenance costs.

It is anticipated that newer cameras will have enhanced features such as expanded fields of view, increased storage, cloud-based access to cameras, remote access from any browser or device, automatic security and software updates, person of interest and motion sensing alerts, and vehicle and people analytics, which make it easier and less time consuming to identify relevant incidents and download video.

MCDOT projects that enhancing the existing surveillance system to extend coverage into these areas in the Bethesda PLD would require approximately 143 additional cameras to include coverage of every stairwell landing and elevator lobby, 106 deck cameras and upgrading the existing 104 cameras that are at or beyond their useful life.