Automated Speed Enforceement Planning
The Impact of Speeding on Traffic Fatalities
Fatal traffic accidents are a leading cause of death in many urban cities. The World Health Organization reports that approximately 1.25 million road traffic fatalities occur globally each year, impacting individuals, property, and society. Speeding is a primary cause of these traffic collisions, leading to increased frequency and severity of accidents.
Automated Speed Enforcement
One emerging strategy to reduce the impact of speeding-induced accidents is Automated Speed Enforcement (ASE). ASE uses speed cameras positioned at strategic locations, known as "treated" sites, to detect and penalize speed violators. Studies on ASE effectiveness typically compare the number of accidents or the percentage of speed reduction in treated areas to estimate safety improvements. These studies suggest that ASE can reduce injury crashes by 20% to 25% at treated sites.
Implementation of ASE in Ontario
In 2017, Bill 65 – the Safer School Zones Act- amended the Highway Traffic Act to introduce ASE in Ontario's school and community safety zones. Since 2020, several municipalities, including Brampton, Durham Region, Hamilton, London, Mississauga, Ottawa, Peel Region, Pickering, Toronto, Waterloo, and York Region, have implemented ASE programs. The City of Vaughan, following the Act, plans to install 10 ASE cameras, with 2 cameras strategically placed in each region to maximize coverage and impact.
Complexities of ASE Operations
The complexities of ASE deployment lie in choosing camera locations with the highest deterrence impact on speeding and periodically relocating the cameras, which is standard industry practice to reduce drivers' over-familiarization with camera locations. Empirical evidence from several cities and municipalities in Ontario shows that the number of violations decreases with time due to this over-familiarization. Nevertheless, relocating the cameras too frequently is costly, and planning would be required to establish a reasonable trade-off between the cost of relocation and the number of captured violators.
Deploying ASE in Community Safety Zones
Other complexities of ASE deployment are related to choosing feasible locations for their installation. These are typically called Community Safety Zones—designated areas within a community where traffic laws are strictly enforced to enhance the safety of pedestrians, cyclists, and motorists. CSZs are chosen based on two Warrants, where Warrant 1 ensures feasibility and Warrant 2 is scoring-based, picking the roads that score highest in terms of certain criteria.
Interactive Design and Analysis
The proposed “continuous” methodology contrasts with the “phased” in that it offers an intuitive (easy to learn) data-driven web-based tactical planning tool for network planning. The tool's automated nature allows for generating quick and responsive results based on the analysis request.
The tool, ASE Planner, covers some drawbacks of “phased” planning as it - a) engages the planners and city staff more actively in the planning process, offering flexibility in terms of their desired level of involvement, b) allows for fast turnaround analysis as the tool is highly automated, c) offers a dynamic planning environment where the planner can interactively engage with the tool, and d) is data-driven and calibrated on historical and real-time datasets.
The tool is designed to complement and sometimes replace the network planning side of traditional master plans. Elements like public engagement, however, still require experienced consultancies trained in this exercise. In summary, the tool offers a wide range of "what-if" scenarios in the design process for responding to evolving transportation challenges and opportunities in a more agile manner than traditional master plans.
Demostrations
Maps and Filters
Customize the visibility of map layers.
The road network and ward boundary layers are selected by default to present the city’s geography.
The “Collision Heatmap” layer represents the distribution of serious injury collisions.
The “Schools” layer marks the positions of educational institutions, while the "School Area” marks the vicinity within a radius of the center of each school, aiding in identifying zones with higher pedestrian activity.
Watch Your Speed (WYS) radar visualizations
The WYS panel shows statistical analysis of speed radar data through interactive filtering mechanisms.
The first slider filters WYS locations by the average number of violations per day, while the second slider governs the duration of enforcement.
The diameter of each circle is proportional to the duration of enforcement and
The colours are indicative of the violation groupings as defined in the speed radar data analysis section. Locations categorized within the low violation group are represented by yellow circles, medium violations by blue, and high violations by red.
Community Safety Zone Panel
This panel identifies community safety zones that pass Warrant 2 in community safety zone detection.
The eight sliders represent the criteria for Warrant 2 of the City of Vaughan's community safety zone policy.
Each slider represents a metric, with the position of the slider determining the threshold level. A green range scores 1, yellow scores 2, and red scores 3.
Clicking "Calculate", the tool processes the user-defined thresholds for each metric, aggregating scores for comprehensive evaluation.
ASE Logistics Optimization
The optimization panel enables planners to develop ASE enforcement scenarios that align with the different objectives:
Minimize the occurrence of traffic violations across the city, thereby maximizing the total number of speed violations that will be prevented and
Maximize how locating ASE cameras in high Warrant 2 score community safety zones (CSZ)
The input parameters to the optimization include:
Total Planning Period: The overall duration of the enforcement strategy in months.
Cycle Duration: The frequency at which cameras are relocated, defining each enforcement cycle's length.
Number of Cameras: Specifies the total number of cameras available for deployment.
Average Ticket Fine: Determines the monetary penalty of a ticket. This input can be revised to be stepwise based on the violation amount by 10 km/hr increments.
Relocation Cost per Camera: Despite the constant nature of this cost, it influences financial reporting.
Cameras per ward: Ensures cameras are allocated equitably across wards.
The final schedule for the given scenario appears after clicking on the optimization button. The location of cameras is displayed on the map and colour-coded by the enforcement cycle, and the detailed schedule table and related analysis are presented in the bottom panel.
Analysis Panel
The bottom panel unfolds when clicking the bottom right icon. It includes four distinct subsections: the ASE Optimization Panel, Community Safety Zone Panel, Ward Analysis Panel, and Property Histogram Panel.
ASE Optimization Panel: This panel displays the outcomes of the ASE scheduling optimization model, including the number of cameras deployed, the anticipated reduction in speed violations, and the number of citations that will be issued. The panel also shows the precise locations of ASE cameras in different wards. Clicking any location in the table prompts the map to zoom on to the corresponding road segment, which is simultaneously highlighted.
Community Safety Zone (CSZ) bottom Panel: Displays the road segments that satisfy Warrant 2 for CSZ. The road segments displayed are ranked according to their total safety scores, ranging from the highest to the lowest, with an intuitive colour-coding scheme to visually communicate the performance of each road segment across eight critical safety metrics. These colours—green, yellow, and red—correspond to scores of 1, 2, and 3, respectively, based on predefined thresholds. Clicking any row in the table prompts the map to zoom on to the corresponding road segment, which is simultaneously highlighted.
Ward Analysis: Facilitate a comparative analysis of safety improvements and potential revenue generation from different wards.
Community Safety Zone Analysis: Presents the frequency distribution of metric values used in the analysis.
Team
In collaboration with Peter Park, Ph.D., LinkedIn.
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