“Roxanne, you don’t have to put on the red light,” Sting once crooned in one of the greatest hits by his band, the Police. Of course, the phrase “red light” has a certain connotation. Today, the Police and the police alike might sing “you better watch out for the red light” instead. This has always been the case, something everyone learned in Driving 101. But today’s use of red light cameras makes it imperative that you stop or face a fine or worse.
Caught In The Act
I got caught for the first time while I was visiting my son and his family in Tennessee. I had rented a car while down there and was returning it to the airport. Nothing transpired at the time, but a couple of weeks later, I received a notice in the mail from Avis, the car rental company I had used.
The letter said that I owed Avis $25 for access to their database by the city of Gallatin. I did not fully comprehend the charge, but I did notice a line about a red light violation. There was no evidence to back up the claim, though. I tossed the letter to the side.
A week later, I received a notice from the city of Gallatin, telling me that I had run a red light and was subject to a $50 fine. As evidence, the notice had two thumbnail photos of a red Chevrolet HHR turning into an intersection.
The car was easy enough to recognize as the one I had rented, but the redness of the traffic signal was not clear from the photo as far as I could tell. I looked at it as closely, but could not say for sure what the color of the light was.
Wow, I thought, they sure do take liberties with this system. But then I noticed a URL at the bottom of the page, indicating where I could watch the video of the infraction. This I have to see, I thought. I went over to my computer, punched in the URL, and saw the thumbnail from the letter. I clicked on it and the video began to play.
I saw my car in the turn lane, heading for the intersection, and watched as the light clearly turned from green to yellow to red as I approached and made the turn. There was no doubt about it, the light had turned red while I was still in the turn lane, but I made the turn anyway. Guilty as charged!
What fascinated me was the clarity of the video and the fact that someone out there was clipping these videos from a stream that must be hours and hours long and posting to this site—just for the offender (me) to view! What a neat system. Since I was so intent on watching the light, I didn’t notice if the license plate was easily readable, too, but it must have been.
Traffic Control, British Style
When I visited Wales recently for the S2K conference, a couple of other journalists and myself were driven from London Heathrow to Cardiff, Wales. During that ride, I learned that the U.S. is a long way behind in monitoring its citizens for traffic infractions. I noticed quite a few cameras on the highway to Wales and asked our driver about them.
He told me that they were being used to monitor vehicle speed. If you drive even a minimal amount over the speed limit, he said, you will find a speeding ticket in your mail shortly after. This is really sophisticated, I thought. In this case, not only is the system taking the video, but speed measurements are being made among multiple cameras as well.
When we arrived in Wales, red light cameras were ubiquitous. The difference between the system in Wales and the one here (or at least in Gallatin or in New York, where I live) is that there are red light signs to warn you about the system.
Machine Vision Marches On
When I read about new sensors, such as Omnivision’s recent OV2710, I think about how fast the cost of high-definition video is coming down, just like many other technologies in the electronics industry. The OV2710 is meant for consumer applications, not industrial, but it points out the state of the art. It’s a native 1080p high-definition CMOS image sensor, unlike some competitive sensors.
We’ve covered machine vision and video processing several times over the past couple of years. Contributing Editor Roger Allan tackled industrial video cameras in the May 8, 2008 issue in “Would You Believe…? Machine Vision Gets Smarter”. Among other things, he mentioned the European Machine Vision Association (EMVA) GenICam standard for cameras, transport layer interfaces, and software.
Contributing editor Rich Quinnell wrote about digital video processing and analysis our July 23, 2009 issue in “Smarter Video Analysis Techniques Mine More Data”. In his article, he described Texas Instruments’ C674x DSP family, which includes a video port that provides dual input and output channels for use in analytics and other video applications.
I don’t know if these devices or standards will wind up in traffic control systems of the future. These systems are getting cheaper and more powerful, though, which are the ingredients needed to add a camera to every intersection with a traffic light.
It's a pity your article was only in Electronic Design, and not in most every daily newspaper in the U.S.
When I was in the U.S. Army stationed in Darmstadt, Germany in 1992, many intersections were monitored by cameras, for both speed, and red-light violations. Coils of wire at the "stop line" at intersections detected the speed of a vehicle and whether it passed during a red light. (The German police often set up mobile systems (sometimes like the speed indicator signs seen here) that were coupled with cameras, they would set up at random places to catch violations.)
Rather than "someone clipping these videos from a stream that must be hours and hours long", as you detected, the system only needs to record and store the video at the time of the violation. At least, that is my suspicion based upon the previous experiences, and my current experience with a situation in my hometown.
My hometown - Chillicothe, Ohio is undergoing a "battle" of sorts about these red-light cameras. So much, that it has made it to the November ballot to vote on a ban on the cameras.
There are around 4 intersections in the town that are monitored by these cameras for speed and red-light violations (and work as I describe above - coils of wire in the roadbed sensing vehicle motion along with the traffic light state).
"Our" particular system is run by a company called Redflex - which I understand is based in Australia. Traffic violations are determined by a Redflex employee (not a police officer in our town) and I beleive actually issue the violation on behalf of our police department. I also understand that a large amount of the violation fee (possibly 40%) goes to Redflex (in Australia).
Many feel that more "real" officers are a better solution than this system, which sends money, not only out of our local economy, but out of the country as well.
Also, a "bug" that I beleive was eventually fixed, was that right-turns on red are legal (under certain conditions) - and many people were cited for doing just that. However, the public relations damage was already done. Claims have also been made that these camera intersections have a reduction in red-light violations, but an increase in rear-end collisions due to drivers stopping suddenly on "yellow" to avoid getting ticketed.
As you see, a rather political hotbed in my hometown. Personally - after having already been exposed to such devices nearly 20 years ago - I have no real issue with having such devices, if properly used. I dont like the fact that the violations are not evaluated by a local law official, and that funds are leaving our local/national economy.
It was refreshing reading an article about such technology, that was not politicially charged like all of that which has been going on locally.
Shawn Coppel -October 26, 2009
They don't need a human to clip out the video. The system does that. In most places, including College Station, Texas, an officer reviews all potential violations before the ticket is issued (something like 18,000 a year here). The reason for review is that the system could have been triggered by another car, or you could have been in the intersection when the light turned red. That is a violation, but College Station only tickets if the light was red when you entered the intersection.
In Texas the income goes to regional trauma centers and traffic safety improvements, so there is no incentive for governments to install them as money-makers.
Hank Walker -October 26, 2009
The technology that detects red light runners is not based on video, it is based on other sensors that detect vehicles as they approach the intersection. These sensors then trigger high resolution cameras that take flash photos of the vehicle license plate and if possible the driver. Video and audio recordings are used to verify that nothing strange occurred and to provide feedback to violators and courts that is more believable. These recordings are clipped in time based on the sensors. Every video clip is viewed by at least one human before a ticket can be issued.
Robert K. -October 05, 2009
I doubt the red-light-camera companies have people who go through video files to post clips for "offenders" to view. I'll bet it's an automated process. Once the system correlates a red light with a moving vehicle in a given zone, software would use the timing information acquired with the images to locate the "offense" and then grab the video a few seconds before and afterward and post that in a file for viewing. Untouched by human hands. Did the video show your image, too? Some people have challenged videos that do not show who drove the car.
I've heard that these types of cameras have reduced accidents in busy intersections. We need some here (Herriman, UT) because drivers routinely run yellow lights, ignore a stop-on-red before turning right, and treat stop signs as suggestions. We have over 400 cameras at intersections, but they serve as traffic-cams and not for law enforcement.
Jon Titus -October 01, 2009
We should put even more effort into technology to catch traffic violations. If the laws are too strict, we can always change them. I completely reject the idea that there's something sinister about this.
What's sinister is having a traffic laws that are widely disobeyed giving the gov't and police officers a reason to stop and question anyone at any time. That system is more likely to be abused for sinister reasons (such as to discourage people from going to a demonstration) than an automated electronic system.
Charles J Gervasi -September 30, 2009
We should put even more effort into technology to catch traffic violations. If the laws are too strict, we can always change them. I completely reject the idea that there's something sinister about this.
What's sinister is having a traffic laws that are widely disobeyed giving the gov't and police officers a reason to stop and question anyone at any time. That system is more likely to be abused for sinister reasons (such as to discourage people from going to a demonstration) than an automated electronic system.
Charles J Gervasi -September 30, 2009
I agree with Robert - This is strctly a revenue enhancement scam to rip off motorists and increase taxes to offset losses in sales and income taxes due to the recession. These cameras are a bad technology that should be banned or extensively regulated.
John -September 24, 2009
These cameras are great! Money makers, that is. The city gets them for free, and splits the ticket revenue with the camera supplier. All the city has to do at install time is shorten the duration of the yellow light, and the money rolls in. Can you spell S-C-A-M ?
Robert P. -September 24, 2009
Why are we allowing the government to take away all of our constitutional freedoms and rights with this kind of Orwellian crap! As I recall we have a right to face our accusers in a court of law. Are we just a bunch of sheep being lead to our destruction without a word of protest? They already are putting cameras in the restrooms of some of our schools and not a word of protest that I have heard of even on this. Or how about the body scanners that eccentually strip you bare naked found in some of our airports. Feel more secure from a (Thank God) nonexistent threat? Don’t be, these TSA goons and all their machines still fail a simulated test far too often. A quick Google search will verify all I have stated!
Roger -September 09, 2009
As tin-hat as it sounds, people are going to have to get the monitoring and control of PEOPLE under ~our~ control now - lest we live under a state microscope.
Cell phone triangulation, GPS, On-Star, traffic cameras / systems, etc. are only get better and cheaper and I for one won't tolerate my every action scrutinized by automation - no matter how cool the technology is.
KCecil -September 09, 2009
Postscript: Technology is not to blame, it simply enables those who wish to abuse it.
J.Williams -September 09, 2009
We're not a long way behind, we're still ahead for the time being but we're slowly being pulled back. When we subrogate law enforcement to machines we all lose. Orwell may have overestimated the pace of technology, but his themes are proving true.
J. Williams -September 09, 2009
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