German Rail Network Fight Graffiti With Drones

Yes you guessed it the German rail network have deployed a fleet of miniature helicopter drones mounted with thermal imaging cameras in order to combat the graffiti spraying gangs who are operating on the German railway network.

Each of the remote drones will fly at an altitude of 150 yards over what is deemed graffiti hotspot or where graffiti is most strife. This will be in the big German cities of Berlin such as Leipzig Hamburg and Cologne a representative from Deutsche Bahn confirmed.

Deploying Drones in such a manner to combat street vandals is an early indicator of the civilian sector using unmanned Arial reconnaissance. It has been reported based on an EU report that over 400 new drone systems are in development by firms based in Europe.

The drones in question cost about 60.000 Euros each and are manufactured by the German firm Microdrones who also sells the machines for photography purposes and analysing traffic accidents to name but two. The Drones are a metre wide and in this case will be painted in Deutsche bahns Red livery.

The Drones however will not be used near the actual railway stations or other immediate areas where members of the public might get caught on film, due to privacy laws, they will be deployed at places such as depots which are very large and time consuming to patrol on foot. Privacy is a sensitive issue in Germany where Google Street view cameras sparked a lawsuit. Other places will include rail yards where trains such as Deutsche Bahns high speed class 411 ICE T are kept will be another are of drone deployment.

The idea is that the drones will work in partnership with security guards to identify and locate graffiti sprayers so they can be apprehended by security forces who will then hand them over to the police, this is due to the actual graffiti removal costing the capital of Berlin around 7.6 Million Euros a year.

Each Drone can travel at a speed of 33 mph and have an 80 minute fly time, interestingly the drones can fly autonomously or by remote control via a human operator, they also hardly emit any noise making them perfect for surveillance. Each drone as well as having infrared will also have GPS tracking systems to establish evidence for criminal prosecution.

Closer to home it was around 3 years ago when Police in Merseyside made their first arrest using a drone, which was able to track a suspected car thief who tried to hide in an undergrowth.

Mostly seen in the newspapers in military campaigns and usually in movies as unmanned killing machines able to deploy missile strikes it seems that drones are becoming more common place in society one has to say their possible application for use is very high. Will we be more likely to see a wider inclusion of drone related activity in the future, from this it's looking quite possible.