Serving the Public Interest with LiveU and Live Streaming Solutions

We have shared stories and case examples of our live streaming technology and drones providing firsthand feeds of developing situations within the public safety sector – building fires, wildfires, mass shootings, hurricanes, flooding, police vehicle chases, and crowd control for high-profile events, parades, and marches to name a few.   

LiveU and drones provide high-quality, reliable video to command and control for quick decision making and subsequent fast deployment of resources.  

In addition to these breaking news situations where technology plays a critical role in saving lives, LiveU and drones also support day-to-day operations within municipalities and public works applications.   

There is a growing need and demand for live streaming by public utilities such as electric, power, and local and state agencies. Live streaming solutions such as the one provided by LiveU help in both the private and public sectors with time-sensitive issues that can adversely affect the quality of life. This could be anything from a water main break or collapsed roadways. These events can cause extensive delays and massive traffic jams that can become a major headache if not dealt with as quickly and safely as possible.  

These difficult situations, while not life threatening, pose unique challenges.  Connecting remote personnel via UAVs to decision makers saves time and money by speeding up the decision-making process.  Let’s think big and look at some real-world examples. 

Imagine you work for the power company and need to deal with a utility issue that needs your supervisor’s attention remotely. Now imagine dealing with that issue in a very large area such as the county of Los Angeles, California. Los Angeles County is one of the nation’s largest counties with 4,084 square miles, an area some 800 square miles larger than the combined area of the states of Delaware and Rhode Island. That is a lot of ground to cover and using available WiFi just isn’t going to cut it. 5G offers superior reliability and better predictability to meet critical communication needs. That’s where LiveU with 5G technology fits in.  

Moving onto the City of Westerville, Ohio live streaming is becoming the soup du jour when servicing the public need. After seeing livestreaming capabilities enhance public safety, The city is looking into leveraging the technology for solar inspections and traffic studies, which reduces the time it takes to conduct these evaluations and decreases the chance of an incident by keeping an inspector off a ladder or roof.  

“We can feed the data through LiveU and watch that,” added Lieutenant Alloway. Because everyone loves the aerial shots of Westerville, the team also supports Public Relations efforts to promote city events and happenings. 

As mentioned earlier, live streaming can be used by city and state officials to keep the public informed about important construction in and around their city. In mid 2023, a major highway collapse in Philadelphia threatened to disrupt thousands of daily commuters and  businesses. Live streaming cameras showed images of the temporary bridge repairs as they happened allowing officials to monitor progress on the damaged infrastructure. This let officials to be transparent with the public and reopen the damaged roadway as soon as it was possible. This is a great example of where live streaming served the public interest. 

Environment Protection Dept (EPD) Hong Kong 

Protecting the environment and wildlife is an international endeavor throughout many countries. The Environment Protection Dept (EPD) in Hong Kong is responsible for monitoring, evaluating, and protecting the environment and raising awareness for green initiatives. The question is how to best deploy limited resources while covering large hard to access areas. 

According to EPD the department’s policies are easier to implement in urban areas. However, in the farmlands and mountainous areas of the New Territories – largely uninhabited and not easily accessible – protecting the environment was a logistical challenge.  

EPD selected LiveU’s LU800 flagship production-level field unit and compact LU300 HEVC units to transmit live video from DJI drones (M300RTK and Mavic 2 Enterprise models), flying around the New Territories region and streaming live video back to the headquarters.  

The drones are controlled remotely with the video streamed and fed through LiveU units to EPD’s in-house video management platform, where they are integrated with the relevant data.  

Using the LiveU/drone solution simplified and automated the department’s work, enabling it to protect the environment cost-effectively over a wide area. 

To learn more about LiveU’s applications for public safety, security, and utility, visit www.liveu.tv/solutions/public-safety.