King County Metro Transit
Seattle, WA

Security By Design commenced its design work with King County Metro Transit (Seattle, WA) in 2004. The county recognized the need for a comprehensive security approach for its varied day-to-day operational requirements and also an approach to identify potential or existing vulnerabilities.

One of the first key projects was to make security provisions for the new public transit tunnel being built directly under Seattle city center (photo below). The challenge on this project was the requirement to grant access for mass transit transportation (buses and light rail trains) while protecting against attacks from other types of vehicles. The tunnel opened in the fall of 2007 and is operating successfully today.

Another primary objective was to design and create a central security monitoring station (SMS) capable of overseeing the security of a number of transit sites which include public parking facilities, coach bases and transit centers. Today the SMS monitors emergency call stations, access control and video images 24 hrs a day for various locations spread throughout the county.

Of great importance to King County Metro is the ability to integrate all of the security systems installed throughout its facilities so that the SMS can react to alarms according to severity, monitor events with real-time surveillance, and dispatch emergency response to events taking place. Andover access controls, Integral DVR's, and Talk-A-Phone call stations were selected and have been augmented with fully functional graphical touchscreen monitors.

Designs for security for King County Metro Transit included fiber-optic infrastructures, wireless surveillance, and wireless access control. All security systems are routed through Metro's IT network.