RIYADH, 31 January 2003 — Under-vehicle inspection (UVI) systems are in great demand after the recent spate of car bomb attacks, and several ministries and other governmental organizations have started floating tenders for them.
“It’s a new trend. We have already sold two UVI units to our client,” Asrar M. Khan, the marketing manager of an electronics firm, told Arab News.
The system, installed underground at the entrance to a property, is programmed to photograph the normal components of a vehicle’s undercarriage. But when it detects something unusual, it flashes an alert signal on the computer screen.
He said it also captures this data in the form of a video clip of the vehicle’s undercarriage and stores it along with the owner’s name and registration number of the vehicle. “When the vehicle comes back, the recorded data is compared with a fresh input from the same car. This makes it virtually impossible for the car owner to make any addition to the undercarriage without it being detected.”
An American firm has announced that it has landed contracts worth more than $200,000 for the supply of some 50 UVI units to an organization in the Kingdom.
Paul Feldman, the president of Law Enforcement Associates Corporation, did not identify his Saudi customer, but said the new units would be used to combat threats to Saudi businesses, government institutions and compounds.
“The contract recognizes the value and importance of deploying prevention and detection technologies in the war on terrorism,” Feldman said in a message released here.
Other security-related developments in the capital include the launch of a GIS-based automatic vehicle locating system (AVL) and closer police monitoring of cars parked for a long time or being towed away for repairs.
Dar Al-Malaha, a Saudi firm, says it has developed a GIS-based automatic vehicle locating system that can also act as a security safeguard in remotely switching off the vehicle, according to Marketing Manager Muneef Ali Mirza.
