Relieving the Congestion around a School via Automatic Vehicle Identification Technology-Based Traffic Measures

Recently, many parents drive their children to and from schools, leading to serious road congestion around the school gate. The school-related congestion is a special type of congestion caused by periodic impulsive aggregation of specific travellers for certain events. In this study, the individual long short-term traffic behaviours were reconstructed based on automatic vehicle identification (AVI) technologies. The cause and countermeasure of congestion around the service centers were identified through the individual behavioural properties. The vehicles that were primarily responsible for periodic impulsive aggregation congestion (PIAC) around the school gate were precisely targeted via a proposed vehicle grading clustering framework. The road management objectives were updated in the AVI data environment and it was found that only 3%–5% of the total number of vehicles passing by the school gate require specific management such as traffic enforcement activities. A series of traffic measures were formulated based on the results of vehicle grading clustering and achieved positive effects in a periodic impulsive aggregation area. It is an effective way to solve the PIAC by formulating management with different activity levels and resolutions for specific travellers. The methodologies and experience presented in this study may provide a useful tool for relieving such special type of congestion around other service centers faced with similar scenarios.

Evaluation of a Public Technology-Based Traffic Enforcement Program

While police enforcement is a well-known means of reducing traffic violations, it is also recognized that other agents should be involved in creating sustainable deterrence. This paper describes and evaluates the Israeli Road Guards program, a new and unique type of traffic enforcement, which enables simple technology-based enforcement of traffic violations by citizens. In its 24 months of operation, more than 3400 volunteers who submitted over 64,000 violation reports were involved in this program. Each report went through a rigorous evaluation process. More than 80% of the submitted reports were rejected in the various stages of the procedure. In 13.7% of the cases a notice letter was sent, and in 4.3% of cases (reflecting the most severe offenses) a citation was issued by the police. The monthly rate of report submission by the volunteers was at its highest initially, then decreased and stabilized after about six months at 1.4 reports per month. The proportion of active volunteers also decreased over time to a level of 0.26 at the end of the study period. The violation types reported within the program differed substantially from those captured by police enforcement. These differences are likely due to the manner in which each mode of enforcement was performed. The most common violations reported by volunteers were lane deviations, red light running and driving on the roads’ shoulders, which are easily documented by means of video recordings. They are also associated with higher crash risks. Thus, the results show that such public technology-based traffic enforcement, which can be carried out during regular daily driving and does not require anyone to make extra trips, may efficiently complement traditional police enforcement.

Biking Where Black: Connecting Transportation Planning and Infrastructure to Disproportionate Policing

This study asks whether deficiencies in transportation are associated with disproportionate policing in Chicago using the case of cycling. I examine how the number of bicycle citations issued per street segment are influenced by the availability of bicycle facilities and street characteristics, controlling for crash incidence, police presence, and neighborhood characteristics. Tickets were issued 8 times more often per capita in majority Black tracts and 3 times more often in majority Latino tracts compared to majority white tracts. More tickets were issued on major streets, but up to 85% fewer were issued when those streets had bike facilities, which were less prevalent in Black and Latino neighborhoods. Tickets were not associated with bicycle injury-crashes and inversely associated with vehicle injury-crashes. Infrastructure inequities compound the effects of racially-biased policing in the context of transportation safety strategies. Remedies include the removal of traffic enforcement from safe systems strategies and equitable investment in cycling.