Remote yard monitoring in Richmond, California

Local and live

Port, rail and refinery country along I-80 and I-580

Richmond hosts the Port of Richmond, California's third-largest port by tonnage at about 19 million short tons a year and the Bay Area's largest harbour for vehicle and liquid-bulk cargo; a 2010 agreement brought a major automaker's vehicle imports to its docks on a 15-year deal. The port's own terminal railroad, the Richmond Pacific Railroad, runs 2.5 miles of dockside track and interchanges with Union Pacific and BNSF, while Interstate 80 and Interstate 580 meet the roughly 7-mile Richmond Parkway, which lets trucks bypass central Richmond on the way to the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge. The Chevron Richmond Refinery, covering roughly 2,900 acres and one of the largest and oldest on the West Coast, is the city's largest single employer with more than 1,200 workers.

In September 2024, Contra Costa County sheriff's deputies and San Pablo police served search warrants at a recycling location on Richmond's Brookside Drive and recovered more than 700 suspected stolen catalytic converters along with roughly 1,100 pounds of copper wire; investigators linked the operation to more than $6.4 million in transactions that year, and three suspects were arrested on grand theft and stolen-property charges. For a yard or lot near the port, the rail interchange or the refinery, that kind of organized resale market is a reminder that an idle trailer, a stack of metal or an unlocked gate can draw attention fast. A site that isn't watched around the clock can lose hours, or an entire load, before anyone on staff even knows something is missing.

A Richmond yard near the port, the rail interchange or the refinery can sit unattended for long stretches, and that's precisely the gap Sigma closes: agents have every connected camera under live watch at any hour, any day of the year, catching activity on a dock, rail siding or refinery-adjacent lot well before it would otherwise show up on footage reviewed days later. When AI detection catches someone moving where they shouldn't be, an agent confirms it on live video before anything else happens, then opens with a live, instant talk-down through the site's speakers, and police, fire services or the client's own contacts get pulled in, with video clips and a written report, if that doesn't resolve things. Drivers get the same treatment at the gate: an agent checks them against the yard's list, schedule or pickup rules, answers them over the speakers, and lets them through remotely, while a separate yard check records trailer and tractor condition and looks over seals on camera. None of that needs a guard booth at the property - a technician's visit covers the cameras and speakers, whether that means putting in new ones or wiring into what's already mounted, and from there it's the client's job to keep the power, internet connection and gate running. What it costs stays below what a round-the-clock guard would run.

Also covering San Pablo, El Cerrito, Pinole, Hercules, Albany, Berkeley, Rodeo, San Rafael.