Security solutions company G4S Cash Solutions (SA) has signed a R450 million deal with fleet management firm Imperial that will see an overhaul of its 720-strong fleet of armoured vehicles.
Imperial will lease the vehicles that G4S will operate, to the security specialist for a period of five years.
Hannes Venter, G4S sales director, says the lease agreement will allow G4S to deploy overhauled vehicles more speedily. "We used to buy and maintain our own vehicles and now that Imperial is taking over maintenance of the vehicles, it enables us from a capital outlay point of view to replace new technology quickly."
Apart from an upgrade to and enhancement of the current technology employed in its cash-in-transit vans, the G4S vehicles will be rebranded in line with a global branding strategy. Andy Baker, regional president for Africa at G4S, says the partnership with Imperial was forged in a bid to drive cost savings and improve service levels, as well as the company's image.
According to Venter, the main changes to the fleet in terms of technology lie in the advanced tracking and interlocking management systems. Drivers will be issued with electronic keys, while the two accompanying G4S officials will each get their own, to access the rear of the vehicle where the "category 3" drop safes are situated.
Access control
Both the driver and supplementary officials' keys are required to operate the system and a camera - one of four around the vehicle - is fitted to the rear for the driver to identify fellow security employees before facilitating access.
All four cameras (the other three located inside the vault, inside the cab and inside the vehicle's rear) are linked to a digital video recorder that is linked to a tracking system, allowing dial-in at any time. Content is downloaded daily and stored for a period of three years, says Venter.
"One of the biggest advantages, which previous technology did not allow for, is that activities can be remotely managed and we can interact with each vehicle wherever they are. It's basically next-generation tech with more control."
He says the technology backbone consists of four disparate pieces of software, managed by a single software program - an in-house solution within a global system, "Scope". The software allows for a dual-intervention process - ensuring that no one person on the vehicle has full control. Venter says this is a "big thing" in terms of security solutions.
Curbing crime
Brainstorm magazine recently reported on the power technology holds in fighting cash-in-transit related crime.
Although the 2009/10 year saw more than 350 cases of "robbery of cash-in-transit" according to the South African Police Service, this figure dropped to 182 for the period between April last year and March.
Venter says the current overhaul was not prompted by a threat of cash heists - an issue he says has diminished in intensity. "The reason for the upgrade was really just that existing technology is five to six years old and was in need of refreshing."
G4S will replace 260 of its vehicles in the first nine months of the three-year process - in the main metropolitan areas of SA (Johannesburg, Pretoria, Durban and Cape Town) and the rest over the following two years. Each vehicle costs just under R1 million, says Venter. "Capacity-wise, they are 5.5-ton vehicles and each has 2.5-tons of weight from technology and armour alone."
G4S is one of four main players in the local cash transporting industry - Protea Coin, SBV and Fidelity being its counterparts - with its fleet forming about 35% of the total vehicles that protect cash-on-the-move on the country's roads (about 2 500).
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