PHOENIX — An RTCC can bring together hundreds of cameras, sophisticated analytics and multiple sources of real-time information. But those capabilities are only as effective as the infrastructure, partnerships and operating decisions supporting them.
For police chiefs considering a new real-time crime center — or expanding an existing one — some of the most consequential questions have little to do with which technology to buy.
That was the message Tempe IT Manager Eric Jensen brought to the National Real Time Crime Center Association (NRTCCA) conference, where he shared a list of more than 99 questions agencies should answer before building or expanding a real-time center.
For Jensen, Tempe’s IT Manager for Service Operations, that answer affects nearly everything that follows: who provides access, who pays to fix and replace equipment, which network carries the feed and who needs to approve its use.
Tempe has more than 2,200 city-owned cameras, but its Real-Time Operations Center uses about 500. The police department owns none of the 2,200-plus cameras, Jensen said. The RTOC went live in July 2024, with police as its first customer, but its technology and budget sit within a broader city structure.
That is why Jensen’s session was less about a particular technology than about the work agencies need to do before a center opens.
Here are six questions from his list that police leaders should bring to IT, city partners and their own planning teams.
1. Who owns the cameras — and what were they installed to do?
Camera totals can sound impressive, but Jensen urged agencies not to confuse the number with operational value.
“That’s a marketing number,” he said of a center’s total camera count. “There’s no way that you could ever look at 2,200 cameras.”
A city may own cameras through facilities, public works, traffic engineering or another department. Schools, universities and businesses may have their own systems and policies. Those cameras may have been installed for a purpose other than police operations.
That makes ownership the starting point, not an afterthought.
“You are now asking that group to utilize their cameras,” Jensen said. “The more you start talking with that group, the easier your life will become in getting more cameras, and getting things modified and fixed.”
Agencies should identify which cameras they actually need, who owns them, what video management systems they use and whether there is a plan and budget to replace aging equipment. They should also identify not only the initial build cost, but the ongoing costs for licensing, storage, maintenance, staffing and hardware refreshes — and which department is responsible for each one.
A useful camera with poor resolution or unreliable connectivity is not a meaningful RTCC asset.
2. Can the network handle the video you want to bring in?
A camera feed is not just an image on an analyst’s screen. It is a continuing stream of data traveling through networks that may also support other city and public-safety functions.
Jensen said a video feed at the necessary resolution and frame rate can generate two to three megabits of data per second. That adds up fast.
“You start multiplying that times 500, times 1,000,” he said. “Now, all of a sudden, you have a gigabit of data flowing through.”
Tempe has upgraded the connection between its RTOC and data center but still encounters bandwidth problems when some cameras produce much larger streams than expected, Jensen said.
The planning questions are practical: How many feeds does the center truly need to support? What networks are those feeds on? What is the path between the RTOC and the data center? Are public-safety systems segmented from enterprise systems? What happens if a system goes offline?
Agencies also need to define their uptime expectations, redundancy and disaster-recovery plan before a critical system fails. A center that depends on video, CAD data or a key integration needs a clear answer about how long it can operate without that capability and what staff should do in the meantime.
In Tempe, the RTOC uses separate enterprise and public-safety networks, with separate workstations and connections. That structure adds setup work, but it reflects the reality that RTCC operations often need to access systems with different security and access requirements.
3. What happens after an analyst finds the video?
RTCC planning often focuses on getting information into the room. Jensen encouraged agencies to think just as carefully about what happens once an analyst finds relevant video.
Can the analyst retrieve the footage? Review it? Cut the relevant portion? Move it into the appropriate evidence system? Preserve the chain of custody? Store the working files without overwhelming the workstation or network?
Tempe operators pull and review video from multiple sources. As the volume of footage increased, Jensen said, they were sometimes working with terabytes of data. The city had to make sure its workstations had enough processing power to handle the files without freezing.
The same planning is needed for every integration. Agencies need to know what data will be available, which systems analysts can search, what access is required and how the data moves between protected environments.
“Whenever a vendor says, ‘Oh, there’s no IT needed,’ run fast the other way,” Jensen said. “They are just flat out lying to you. IT will always be needed.”
4. What did you promise the people sharing their cameras?
Tempe receives camera feeds from three school districts. Before the city finalized those arrangements, Jensen said, staff spent several hours answering one recurring question from school partners: What will police do if they see something?
The agreement was clear. The RTOC would use the school cameras in response to calls for service, rather than actively monitor them. Tempe also agreed to provide an annual audit showing which calls involved a school camera, who accessed it and how long it was viewed.
That level of detail may not be glamorous, but it is what turns a camera-sharing relationship into a sustainable partnership.
The same questions apply when agencies work with businesses, private security teams or residents: Who can access the feed? Under what circumstances? How is access documented? Who performs audits, and how often? What privacy and public-records rules apply?
As Jensen put it, agencies need to determine “how often you’re going to do it, when you’re going to do it, and who’s going to do it.”
5. Who makes the decisions when the center needs something new?
An RTCC can bring together police, IT, legal, dispatch, procurement, city leadership and outside agencies. That means agencies need a process for deciding who approves a new technology, who creates user accounts, who sets access rules and who is responsible when an integration breaks.
Jensen’s list also includes questions about policy: Who is authorized to use the system? How are searches audited? What rules govern data retention, facial recognition and AI? How will policies be updated as the technology changes?
His advice was to involve the people responsible for those answers early — especially information security.
“Find out who your chief information security officer is,” Jensen said. “Become friends with that person.”
6. What will the RTCC do when the call comes in?
The final questions are not IT questions alone. They define the center’s operating model.
What incidents automatically involve the RTCC? Who can request assistance? How will requests move from dispatch to analysts to patrol? How will the center prioritize competing calls? How will critical information be shared? What does success look like?
Agencies also need to decide whether the center will operate 24/7, who will staff it and what skills analysts need. Those choices shape the center’s budget, training plan and ability to meet the expectations it creates for dispatchers and officers.
Jensen also urged agencies to include analyst wellness in the plan. People working in a real-time center can see the same traumatic incidents officers encounter in the field, including fatal crashes and violent events.
“Your staff might not really be prepared for some of the stuff that they’ll see,” he said. “These folks are sitting in a room watching a whole bunch of cameras and see the same thing.”
An RTCC may open with screens, software and cameras. But Jensen’s 99-question list is a reminder that the work begins much earlier — with the people, policies and infrastructure that make those tools usable. Access the list here.
Before opening or expanding an RTCC, bring police, IT, dispatch, legal and partner agencies together to answer these questions:
• Who owns, manages and pays to replace the cameras the RTCC needs?
• How many feeds can the network, storage and workstations reliably support — and what is the plan if a critical system goes offline?
• How will analysts move video from source systems into evidence?
• What access, audit and privacy commitments have been made to schools, businesses and other partners?
• Who approves new technology, manages users and resolves integration problems?
• What will the RTCC cost to build and operate, who will staff it and when will it provide support?
