MONTH IN FM
APRIL 2022 53
FMJ.CO.UK
AI-POWERED SYSTEM FROM HIGHLIGHT PARKING
HELPS PREVENT CATASTROPHIC FIRES BY
DETECTING SMOKE OR FIRE IN SECONDS
Key to preventing the devastation, damage
and injury caused by fire is early detection.
Highlight Parking has launched its AI-powered
Smoke and Fire Early Warning System S.A.F.E.,
which detects smoke or fire within just a few
seconds in any environment where there is a
risk of fire. This means emergency services can
be alerted sooner and prevent a fire spreading
out of control.
Why S.A.F.E.?
One particular fire that made the news, was at King’s
Dock multi-storey car park at the Liverpool Echo
Arena on New Year’s Eve 2017. By the time the fire
service had been alerted, the fire had been burning
for 13 minutes, and despite their quick response, it
was too late; 1,200 vehicles were destroyed, and the
insurance bill was a massive £20 million. Thankfully
nobody was injured. It was this fire that inspired
Highlight Parking to begin developing S.A.F.E. to
help prevent similar events in the future, not just in
multi-storey car parks but any large commercial or
public building.
“We developed S.A.F.E. because conventional
fire systems in car parks are based on heat
detection, which means a fire may already be
out of control before the alarm is raised, as was
the case at King’s Dock”, explains David Harrison,
MD at Highlight Parking. “Obviously, fire safety is
extremely important to car park operators as well as
building owners, and Chief Fire Oˆ icers cite speed
of response as absolutely critical when it comes to
preventing a fire disaster, like the one in Liverpool.
S.A.F.E. provides this.”
How it works
S.A.F.E. works with around-the-clock unattended
monitoring, automatically detecting the presence of
any smoke within seconds. Connected to a
cloud application, S.A.F.E. immediately triggers a
visual and audible alert, with email/SMS warnings
sent automatically to smart devices and to
control room screens. S.A.F.E.’s AI capability
means that smoke can be detected as fast as
the human eye, rather than waiting for flames
to reach the car park’s ceiling mounted fire
wire detectors. The outcome is that emergency
measures can be put into practice far more quickly,
so the likelihood of serious damage or injury is
dramatically reduced.
S.A.F.E. in action
FTSE 100 company, Severn Trent Water in Coventry
has implemented the S.A.F.E. solution at its
headquarters’ multi-storey car park. With 15,000
employees, it is no surprise that health and safety is
of paramount importance to the organisation.
Richard Carney, Project Manager at Severn Trent
comments: “The S.A.F.E. system was a guaranteed
investment for us. We did of course have a fire alarm
system in the car park but, S.A.F.E. provides a far
quicker response; we timed it at between seven
and eight seconds compared to 12 minutes for our
existing system.”
Not just for car parks
While S.A.F.E. has been developed for car parks, its
AI soœ ware can be implemented in any other space
where there is a fire risk, such as foyers, cafeterias,
warehouses, storage facilities, retail and other large
buildings. The system can be installed by uploading
Highlight’s proprietary S.A.F.E. soœ ware to an
existing or new CCTV camera system.
Using its AI technology, Highlight can also develop
specialist bespoke solutions for any internal or
external monitoring or information gathering.
www.highlightparking.co.uk 020 8769 7730
/www.highlightparking.co.uk
