cost of a red light camera

isn't it usually just a box with a professional photo camera inside connected with advanced electronics?

It's a bit more than that, neo. There are sensors installed in the intersection to detect vehicle presence, which is how the system knows where the car is before and after the light turns red. It needs to interface with the traffic light system, which can be very expensive if the light control wasn't designed for that. Then one or more cameras need to be installed, plus flash units and wired to the RLC control. Usually there is a provision for real time data transmission to the RLC mother ship, wireless data comm is often used for this. You're looking at a few hundred grand, although a million seems a bit high.

The RLC will be designed to payback that cost as quickly as possible.

I thought it was a revenue sharing plan with no up front costs. Installer gets portion of the ticket in exchange for installing the cameras.

Not all cameras use loop detectors,some use radar aimed at the stop line, others use a laser. They are all connected to the traffic signal controller though, that's where they get the signal the light has cycled red.

whats the setting on these red light cameras? its shutter speed...

Bingo. We have a winner.

The programs are operated by the owners. So it really doesn't matter how much the camera costs because that is absorbed by the provider.

Oh, I'm certain that it factors into the contract negotiations in terms of the guaranteed minimum cashflow that the city has to accept - and as such the city is paying for it out of potential revenue.

But there is no direct cost, which is one reason these things are so popular. They generate revenue for the jurisdiction to waste with very little cash investment.

It's just surprising how teeny weeny towns now have them going up, so the revenue sharing sounds feasible. Heck, people bought homes and continue to get cars with $0 down, why wouldn't local govt. follow this foolish spending pattern as well?

I thought the cost was paid by the provider and then they split the cost with the town.

The typical arrangement is that cost of the system is borne by the operating company and the revenue is split between the operator and the local authorities, subject to the operating company receiving some minimum amount of income, to be paid by the authorities to the company should there be a shortfall.

Do the providers get to adjust the timing, duration of the light in order to insure a revenue stream from violators?

They don;t program the signals, if that's what you are asking. The city does that.

I gather than discussions are held and then city then implements whatever was agreed to.

The motives are supposed to be for improved safety and better compliance, but there are a large body of evidence that points to a fair amount of profit driven decision making.

I grabbed this from another thread,

http://www.poi-factory.com/node/33029

"Gatso USA will provide the cameras and process citations. The city and contractor will share revenue from the cameras.

In the past year, police officials have estimated each camera could bring in $100,000 a year. Scott said he was not immediately able to say whether revenue projections have changed."

If it wasn't about revenue, why would that even be a factor? Not once in that article, do they mention how many accidents are occurring at those "dangerous" intersections.

MSNBC has a great story about Red Light Cameras...

....

Full Article
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43521646/ns/us_news-life/

The link above is to a MSNBC story which references an audit by LAPD.

There is a link to the full audit in the MSNBC story.

This link is to an earlier article about the audit itself.
http://www.myfoxla.com/dpp/news/local/audit-questions-red-li...

The article says:
"City Controller Wendy Greuel, whose office conducted the audit, acknowledged that no fatal accidents have occurred at any of the 32 intersections with cameras since 2006. That's a sharp reduction from 2004 and 2005, when five deaths were reported at those locations.

Meanwhile, the number of traffic collisions also dropped from 351 in 2005 -- the year before the cameras were installed -- to a low of 297 in 2006 and a high of 338 in 2008. Last year, 322 traffic collisions were reported in the intersections with cameras."

Those statements would seem to say that the cameras had resulted in an improvement in safety.
1. No fatal accidents at any of the enforced sites
2. Accident lower each year since implementation

Hovever, the article continues:
"Greuel, however, expressed skepticism that the improvement could be attributed solely to the cameras.

'The attached audit of the city's Photo Red Light Program found that the program has not been able to document conclusively an increase in public safety due to incomplete data collection,' Greuel said in her report."

It seems that, although the data presented points to an increase on safety, LA can not "document conclusively an increase in public safety".

Why - "due to incomplete data collection"

There is an interesting quote in the MSNBC article that also uses the term "conclusively". In talking about a number of large scale studies in recent years, the writer says:

“To boil it down: The studies conclusively establish a correlation between the use of cameras and a reduction in deaths at signalized intersections; even opponents of cameras acknowledge that. The arguments arise because of the statistical reality that a correlation — the fact that two things happened at the same time — doesn't necessarily mean that one of those things caused the other.”

"the fact that two things happened at the same time — doesn't necessarily mean that one of those things caused the other.”

Many times there are multiple factors such as intersection is re-designed, re-directed traffic flow or even less cars on the road(s) dur to the economy. Naturally the money hungry city/county and money generating device company leave those facts out of the story and many supposed investigative reporters don't bother to look.

Thank You !!!

The tobacco companies spent years using just that argument. It was only when the data became overwhelming that action was taken and people recognized that "uncertainly" was miniscule.

I wonder how the citizens of Houston are explaining away the data that can be found in Attachments 6 and 7 of this link.

http://www.click2houston.com/download/2011/0620/28296008.pdf

The data from the 5 months before the cameras were turned off was compared to the data for the five months after. The data shows:
Period..Accidents..Major....Fatal
prior.......268.........44........0
after.......634........200.......1

We are not talking "percentage" increases; we are faced with "multiple times" increases.

I see no information on traffic flows including # of cars per day and weather for periods in report? Were there sporting events, concerts or any event which would increase or decrease the number of cars on roads in question or the age of the drivers on said roads? What times of day or night were the accidents? Was there any road contruction or event during any period when the cameras were on or off that would effect numbers?
I don't want to see a one page compilation from a company who has a vested interest in making their cameras appear to reduce accidents or save lives.
I want to see the entire data set including anything that could change these numbers because it does make a difference.
If I understand your argument, the camera companies always state they provide a valuable service and we shouldn't believe them because they're liers just like the cig companies?

Why would you assume there were extenuating circumstances that would have altered the flow between periods? It's Houston, they don't have problems with weather that will affect traffic flow more than a few days during the periods being reported.

Same argument as above - you just replaced weather with other conditions. Why do you think there would not have been the same types of events going on in both periods? Houston has both Major League Baseball and NBA Basketball. That means they have major sporting events all year long - and the stadiums are within a mile of each other so the streets used would be pretty much the same.

So, in effect you are stating the Houston Police Department is providing falsified data showing the results the camera company wants rather than a true accounting of crashes occurring in the affected intersections? Looking at the attachments in the report, they appear to be on Houston PD stationery and generated within minutes of each other. It doesn't appear as if ATS did anything other than request the reports.

I think your statement above is a little convoluted. Jgermann wasn't making any claims, in fact if you go back into the thread you are attempting to attribute an argument by the Los Angeles City Controller to Mr. Germann. Mr. Germann only stated a similar argument was used for years by the cigarette manufacturers to counter research their product was a significant contributing factor to a great many deaths caused by lung cancer. In the Houston report, it appears as if the data compiled by the Houston Police Department does show a difference in the number and type of crashes at the specified locations.

"Jgermann wasn't making any claims"..
The tobacco companies spent years using just that argument.
Someone else may have said it but that isn't the way it is presented imo.

"Why would you assume there were extenuating circumstances that would have altered the flow between periods?" Fact is I didn't assume, I asked for data to make a decision.

Conversly why would you assume there weren't any?
I didn't say there were or were not any I just asked for the data so I could draw a more valid conclusion. Hopefully you would at least agree that the more information you have the better and more valid your decision should be.

If you compared a 2 month time frame during baseball season and a 2 month period during football season
could you draw an initial conclusion that since more baseball games were likely played you might have more traffic? If you had more traffic might there be more accidents?
If this doesn't make sense to you I'm sorry

Most cities contract with a company to take the entire risk and incurr the cost of installing and maintaining the cameras. Intersections are different and may involve different costs.

In our city, we had multiple cameras on each approach, one taking "movies" and another capturing a still picture in high resolution before and after the stop line. Flashes, weather-proof housing, poles, and communications connectivity all add to the cost. For that, the vendor takes a cut of the fines collected by the city.

Our city, however, did not use them as revenue generators but rather to encourage people to stop at lights at dangerous intersections. It worked and the number of violations was dramatically reduced over a year. So much so that the vendor request a modification in the contract to ensure they received a minimum payment every month, since our police were particularly "generous". (That is, they did not give tickets easily.)

The equipment cost at the intersection is not particularily high. I would expect the cameras, housing, lights and poles would be under $5,000 per approach. However, there is much more "behind the scenes" to store the imagery, give secure access to police to review and verify tickets as valid, allow violators to view the video and pictures, etc. However, this is shared costs spread out among all the users. So "cost per camera" is only part of the story.

Frside007,

We're probably arguing the same point from different perspectives. First off, I'm neither pro nor anti camera, they don't bother me, but I am more than happy to support the listings as they do help to remind me to be careful as I drive.

As to the traffic flow, I cited baseball and basketball as I know the stadiums are less than a mile apart, the presence or absence of a game would not have a telling effect on the total amount of traffic over the two 5 month periods. The second thing we have to assume is the intersections were initially chosen because of the traffic count and the number of intersection related crashes occurring at each.

Let's just look at one intersection, Bissonnet@S US 59. Having been to Houston many times, I can tell you the SW Freeway (US 59) is a major route into and through the city. Traffic density is going to be fairly constant at this intersection regardless of weather, sports events or whatever. The HPD report states for the period Date Range: 11/15/2009 To 4/30/2010 there were 6 accidents, 1 a major meaning with injuries. The same intersection for the report period 11/15/2010 To 4/30/2011 showed 17 accidents, 9 of which were major. As the reporting period spanned the same date range, one could infer the only difference would have been driver awareness of an operating camera.

Now, it would be easy for either one of us to make any number of assumptions by stating we don't know all the facts, and I agree, we don't know all the different data points that would affect the report. However, we do know over the same exact reporting period there were fewer accidents from Nov '09 to April '10 than there were for the period Nov '10 to April '11.

The fact the same date range was used for both reports would make an extremely strong argument the mitigating factor was the presence of an operating camera.

Now, I just happened to pick this particular camera because I could locate the intersection easily. The same comparison can be done with any intersection. The fact the City of Houston and ATS both made money from pictures of drivers which met whatever criteria used by the HPD to issue a ticket becomes secondary when the number of intersection crashes is taken into account. It does show the camera did have an affect on driver behavior. It also shows Houstonians are really pretty lousy drivers.

I would simply suggest that anytime the people who prepare a study which may benefit them you give the study/report a good look. Just because it looks like a duck, seems to quack like a duck may not mean it is in fact a duck.

Cheers

They do get a say in yellow light timing.

On several occasions these camera companies have said that lengthening of the yellow light at their intersections VIOLATES the contract with the city.

So, before city engineers can make changes, the effect to the camera company's profits must be evaluated and the companies consulted.

If a city just lengthens the yellow light timing at a camera enforced intersection there is a strong likelyhood the city will be in violation of the contract and sued.

So, yes Virgina, the camera companies get a strong voice in the timing of the yellow light.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZINQC_yMnQ0&feature=player_em...

Is there a way to tell when the News 5 report was filmed?

The report was spotlighting the fact that many camera contracts state some minimum number of violations per light. The report noted that cities had lengthened yellow light timings and the number of violations dropped. That caused a problem for ACS, the vendor who claimed their contract with cities (Mesa and Phoenix were both mentioned) had been violated.

The reason I wonder about the date of the report is that - at the very last of the report - the announcer says that ACS had agreed to renegotiate with Mesa, AZ to lengthen ADDITIONAL yellow light timings in the interest of public safety. I just wondered if that actually later happened.