How Solar Trailer Security Systems Can Reduce Crime at The British Open

Edinburgh Reporter

4 days ago

Golf's biggest UK event is a security headache: tens of thousands of fans, sprawling temporary villages, remote car parks, valuable broadcast and hospitality equipment, and multiple unsecured perimeters that appear and disappear within weeks. Permanent CCTV and fibre are rarely in place where you most need them, and diesel generator towers add cost, noise and emissions. Solar Surveillance trailers solve this by delivering rapid, off-grid surveillance, analytics and comms that can be moved, scaled and redeployed as the build, event and tear‑down phases progress.
Photo by Shep McAllister on Unsplash
Why The Open is uniquely hard to secure
The Open runs across large, open spaces that are reconfigured daily. You have crowds during play, but also long hours of low-footfall risk when kit is left onsite overnight. You often need coverage in car parks, practice ranges, hospitality compounds and merchandise tents where trenching power or data is impractical. Weather is unpredictable, cellular capacity fluctuates, and the infrastructure must disappear as fast as it arrived. A mobile, energy self-sufficient platform is far better suited to this cycle than fixed poles or cabling.
What a solar trailer actually delivers
A solar trailer is a towable unit with a telescopic mast, high-efficiency panels, a LiFePO4 battery bank sized for multi-day autonomy, and an onboard compute module that runs AI analytics locally. It carries PTZ and fixed cameras (and optionally thermal), uses LTE, 5G or Starlink for backhaul, and pushes only meaningful alerts to the security team. Because it is self-powered, you avoid diesel generator costs and emissions. Because it is mobile, you can reposition it daily as risk shifts.
Core capabilities that matter during a major tournament
Edge analytics that cut noise. Person and vehicle detection, intrusion zones, line crossing, loitering and object left/removed alerts run on the trailer. Security staff get signal, not a video firehose.
Rapid deployment. Units can be dropped and live in hours without trenching, permits or electricians.
Connectivity redundancy. Dual SIM, Starlink or microwave links keep footage and alerts flowing when local networks are saturated.
Evidence-grade recording. Local storage combined with cloud sync protects the chain of custody and ensures you do not lose video if a link drops.
Zero or near-zero operational emissions. The event can meet sustainability objectives and reporting commitments while maintaining high readiness.
A deployment blueprint for The Open
Perimeter and back-of-house fencing. Place trailers at strategic choke points and blind spots to detect intrusion after hours.
Public car parks and park-and-ride. Use PTZ cameras with LPR to track suspicious vehicles, coordinate with police and deter theft.
Broadcast, hospitality and vendor compounds. Protect high-value gear when crews leave for the night.
Practice ranges and overflow areas. Reposition units to follow crowd flow and newly identified risks without sending electricians.
Emergency response staging. Push mobile coverage to first-aid tents and incident command posts that move throughout the week.
Operational workflow: before, during, after
Before the event: Conduct a rapid risk map. Define autonomy days required based on worst-case weather. Pre-stage SIMs or Starlink, set analytics rules and escalation paths, and test with blue-light partners.
During the event: Monitor a single dashboard for all trailers. Trigger PTZ auto-tracking from analytics. Escalate to stewards or police with clipped evidence rather than raw streams.
After the event: Redeploy to the next venue, construction site or storage yard. Export incident logs and video packages for insurers and law enforcement. Audit uptime, false alarms and response times to tighten rules for the next tournament.
Privacy, legality and standards in the UK
Solar trailers are still CCTV, so they must comply with UK GDPR, the Surveillance Camera Code of Practice and the Protection of Freedoms Act 2012. That means clear signage, defined purposes, retention limits, access controls and audit trails for who viewed or exported footage. Make sure your supplier supports role-based access, encrypted storage, and simple export workflows so you can meet Subject Access Requests quickly.
Procurement and Budgeting
Events can rent, lease or buy. Renting suits one-off or rotational tournaments. Leasing or purchase makes sense if you will redeploy trailers to stadia, training grounds or other events throughout the year. When comparing quotes, include trenching avoided, guard hours reduced, diesel saved, and the ability to reuse the fleet across multiple sites.
KPIs to track
Time to deploy and configure a unit
Number of actionable alerts vs false alarms
Mean time to verify and respond
Days of autonomy achieved vs specified
Percentage of video mapped to incidents for evidence packages
Diesel or generator runtime avoided
FAQs
Will they work through a cloudy week?
Yes, if sized correctly. Specify the required autonomy days in your RFP and make vendors model worst-month irradiance for the venue.
Can they integrate with police or the event's existing VMS?
Choose trailers with ONVIF, RTSP and open APIs so you can stream, share clips and push alerts to existing control rooms.
Do they replace guards?
No. They reduce routine patrols and improve detection. Human response is still required.
What about network congestion when crowds peak?
Dual SIM, private microwave or Starlink backhaul plus store-and-forward recording makes the system resilient even when public networks are saturated.
Conclusion
The Open needs security that moves as fast as the build and tear-down schedule. Solar trailer security systems give organisers an immediate, low-carbon way to deter theft, monitor perimeters and car parks, and generate evidence without trenching or diesel generators. Specify autonomy, analytics, open integrations and GDPR compliance up front, test them before gates open, and you will leave the course with fewer incidents, faster responses and a reusable playbook for the next tournament.
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