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By Andrew Kertesz, Regional Sales Manager, Central Canada,
Axis Communications
At 2:13 a.m., a haul truck stops around a bend on an isolated road at a northern Canadian mine. From the control room, the vehicle is visible, but the reason it stopped is not. Is the operator waiting for clearance, responding to a mechanical warning, or in need of assistance? A second truck is travelling toward the same section of the road, where limited visibility may prevent its driver from seeing the stopped vehicle in time.
In this situation, the control room must quickly determine whether the situation is routine or whether it needs to warn the approaching driver and dispatch help. At the moment, the difference between seeing an incident and understanding it becomes critical.
As Canadian mines move through October, that distinction becomes more important. Daylight is contracting, overnight temperatures are falling, and winter weather will soon make outdoor areas harder to monitor consistently. For operations in the Northwest Territories, Nunavut, Northern Quebec or Ontario, and Labrador, darkness may occupy much of the working day.
It may be tempting to treat this primarily as a lighting problem, assuming that brighter sites or clearer nighttime images will provide the necessary visibility. Those measures can improve what appears on a screen, but they do not ensure that an unusual event will be noticed, understood, or acted upon. Lighting can also create glare, deep shadows, and reflections from snow, while additional camera views may simply give control-room personnel more information to monitor.
Darkness does not necessarily create operational risk. It conceals risks that already exist and makes them harder to recognize in time. The more useful question is whether a mine can maintain the same quality of decision-making at 2 a.m. in January as it can at 2 p.m. in July.
Seeing an incident is not the same as understanding it
Visibility is often measured by whether an area appears clearly on a screen. Yet a recognizable image does not always tell an operator what is happening, why it matters, or what should happen next. A complete picture depends on the ability to detect an event, locate it, provide context, and bring it to the attention of the right person.
Effective situational awareness can be viewed as a chain: detect that something has changed, verify what has happened, understand its significance, and enable an appropriate response. Darkness can weaken any point in that chain.
Consider the stopped haul truck. A camera view may confirm its presence, but the operational concern is that is whether the stop is routine and whether the approaching driver has enough time to respond. Recognizing that change in normal activity is what turns an image into useful information.
The same distinction applies elsewhere. Seeing a person near a fuel storage area does not indicate whether that person is authorized or entering without permission. Observing movement near a conveyor does not explain whether a worker is completing a planned task or has crossed into an active equipment zone.
Mining organizations can begin by identifying the questions that matter in each location. Along a haul road, operators may need to know whether a vehicle has stopped or is travelling in the wrong direction. At a processing facility, the priority may be detecting a person in a hazardous area. Around a perimeter, personnel may need to distinguish routine activity from an approach that requires investigation.
Increasingly, video can also function as an operational sensor. The same infrastructure used for security may help personnel verify a stopped vehicle, investigate unexpected congestion, monitor activity around loading areas, or understand why movement around a process has changed. Its value comes from applying the information to operational decisions rather than treating video as an isolated security function.
Darkness tests the entire chain of awareness
The fall season provides an opportunity to examine how those questions are answered before winter conditions peak. The assessment should include site entrances, roads, equipment yards, stockpiles, processing areas, and isolated buildings. Coverage that suited last winter may no longer reflect current extraction routes and work zones.
Weather further complicates the task. Environment and Climate Change Canada notes that blowing snow can significantly reduce visibility, while ice fog can form quickly in temperatures below -30°C. Headlight glare, exhaust plumes, vibration, and accumulating snow can also affect what operators see and how automated detection performs.
The infrastructure itself must also be able to operate reliably in those conditions. Camera placement, mounting, heating, network connectivity and maintenance requirements all become part of the visibility equation when equipment is exposed to snow, dust, vibration, icing and extreme temperatures.
Maintaining awareness under these conditions often requires several sources of information working together. One may detect that something is present and moving, while another provides the detail needed to assess it. Analytics can help identify activity outside established patterns, such as a vehicle arriving after scheduled delivery hours, an object remaining stationary, or a person crossing a defined boundary.
No single technology necessarily provides the entire picture. Visible-light cameras can provide detail and context, while thermal imaging can help detect people or equipment when darkness or difficult lighting limits conventional imagery. Radar can help identify movement, direction and position across larger areas, while analytics can direct attention toward activity that falls outside expected patterns. The objective is not simply to deploy more technology, but to combine complementary tools around the operational question being asked.
Picture a fly-in mine in Nunavut where a worker enters a restricted area near an operating conveyor during a night shift. The person may be visible on camera, but that image has limited value if no one is watching the feed or recognizes that the location presents an immediate risk. A more effective process would identify the boundary crossing, direct the operator to the relevant view, and provide enough context to assess the situation. Personnel could then contact the worker or follow the site’s escalation procedure before the individual moves closer to operating equipment.
Turning an alert into a response
A control room may receive information from numerous locations, and operators cannot examine every view continuously. The aim should not be to direct attention toward events that may require a decision without generating so many notifications that important alerts become lost in the noise.
The goal should also be to avoid creating another standalone stream of information that personnel must constantly watch. Where appropriate, video and analytics can become part of broader operational workflows, presenting relevant information when an event occurs rather than requiring an operator to monitor every camera continuously.
The Axis Perspectives Report 2026 found that security and safety remain the leading purposes for video surveillance, cited by 89 per cent and 81 per cent of respondents respectively. However, 42 per cent also reported using video to improve operations and workflows. For mines, that broader value lies in supporting vehicle management, incident response, worker safety, and production awareness.
Technology alone does not guarantee that value. Every alert needs an owner, a verification process, and a defined response. If a system identifies a stopped vehicle, operators should know who must be contacted and when assistance should be dispatched. If someone enters a restricted area, personnel should understand whether to communicate with the worker, issue a warning, or escalate the event.
Effective situational awareness therefore depends on technology, people and process working together. A useful alert should help personnel answer four questions quickly: What happened? Where did it happen? Does it require action? Who needs to respond?
These procedures should be tested under realistic conditions. At a Northern Quebec mine, nighttime testing might reveal that haul-truck headlights repeatedly trigger alerts near a processing area. Adjustments could reduce those unwanted notifications, followed by another test to confirm that relevant activity is still detected.
Testing should challenge the response rather than only the equipment. Did the alert reach the correct operator? Was its meaning clear? Could the operator access the necessary information quickly? Did the response occur within an acceptable time? Those questions reveal whether the mine has situational awareness or simply a collection of images and alarms.
When that chain works properly, the benefits extend beyond visibility. Faster verification can help focus operator attention, reduce unnecessary investigations or dispatches, and give personnel better information when deciding whether intervention is required.
Visibility that leads to action
Return to the haul truck stopped around the bend. The measure of visibility is not whether the vehicle appeared on a screen. It is whether the mine recognized that the stop might present a hazard, understood the potential consequences, and warned the approaching driver in time.
That is the standard mining organizations should apply as the days shorten. Darkness should be treated as an operating condition, not an exception, and visibility should be evaluated by the decisions it enables. Canadian mines cannot eliminate the long nights, but they can reduce the uncertainty those nights create by building systems that detect change, provide context, and give people enough time to act.
About Andrew Kertesz
Andrew Kertesz has worked within the security industry for over a decade. He started as an installer for an alarm and video security integrator as their IT installation professional and quickly moved into a management role. After working as an integrator, Andrew joined Axis Communications as the Small Business Account Manager in Canada, then moved into an RSM role for Western Ontario in 2018. In 2022, Andrew moved into a Business Development Manager, supporting customers across Canada with a key focus on the K-12 and higher education segment. He now manages the business development and channel programs for the Canadian market.
About Axis Communications
As the industry leader in video surveillance, Axis Communications develops and supplies innovative network solutions that improve security, safety, operational efficiency, and business intelligence for our customers across the world.