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Friday, February 03, 2012
Photo Enforcement Salesman Focuses on Revenue Generation
Companies that operate red light and speed cameras are always looking for receptive city councilmen willing to sign up for automated ticketing services. The general public rarely has the opportunity to review the pitch these firms make behind closed doors, as it is often contrary to the message they present to the general public. This turned out to be the case after a salesman at an upstart photo enforcement provider B and W Sensors decided to email a member of the Arnold, Missouri city council.
"How can we provide a 'NO' cost solution to the enclosed picture?" asked company co-founder John M. Blaine in a February 1 email. The caption on the attached image read: "Budget issues? Take what you've got and make it work."
Baine had sent this message to Doris Borgelt, a recently elected member of the council who campaigned last year as a vocal opponent of photo ticketing. Borgelt made it clear she did not like red light cameras in her campaign literature, interviews and in door-to-door meetings with over a thousand Arnold residents. That did not deter Baine, who insisted B and W's speed cameras represented a solution to the city's budgetary problems, which was a suggestion Borgelt did not find particularly appropriate for Arnold.
"We may be in better shape than most cities," Borgelt told TheNewspaper.
Baine's pitch nonetheless laid out five points emphasizing his system is provided "at 'NO' cost to the community or the PD," that the system has "no cost, no termination fee, no exit penalty," that it is ideal for "relieving pressure on the streets and public works budgets," that the system is legal, and that it created the possibility of forming "strategic partnerships."
Arnold does not currently use speed cameras, and the interest in the red light cameras has waned since the city increased the duration of the yellow time at intersections one year ago. Violations have since decreased substantially in the program operated by American Traffic Solutions (ATS). The latest data from December show the positive trend has continued.
"It's a 91 percent decrease in violations," Borgelt said. "So if they're going to get a tenth of the income that they had been planning on, I don't see it being profitable for ATS to keep them there."
As a new entrant into the marketplace, Baine must sharply undercut the pricing of established competitors ATS and Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia. Baine offered a free tracking system as a reward for Arnold if it would sign up and issue a certain minimum number of tickets.
"As a bonus we will pay for a service that offers a GPS tracking system that can help locate senior citizens or folks with autism if they have taken a walk and become confused," Baine wrote on October 26. "This service covers up to 200 of your citizens and we will do one system for each ASE system deployed in the jurisdiction that produces at least 65 paid citations per day with a minimum fine of $115 for folks 10 to 15 MPH above the posted limit (the municipality collects 60 percent of the face value of the fine)."
Borgelt was amused by Baine's persistence, but she remained unpersuaded. She informed the salesman that engineering solutions have proved far more effective than automated enforcement in improving safety.
"Is it about the money?" Baine wrote in a September 20 email. "Of course it is. It just isn't coming from where the angry crowd had anticipated. And therefore the political will is with you. This pro-active position will support and protect your decision making process and provide real dollar returns back to your community."
Thursday, February 02, 2012
Congressional Budget Office: Toll Roads Are Not Free Money
Toll roads are all the rage with politicians across the country. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers see "public-private partnerships" as the solution to their transportation funding difficulties by turning to the private sector to pay for infrastructure improvements through tolling. A report released last month by the non-partisan government analysts at the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found the purported benefits of this financing mechanism were mostly illusory, as taxpayers end up paying roughly the same amount either way.
"The case is sometimes made that using funds from private capital markets to finance roads can increase the resources available to build, operate, and maintain roads," the CBO report stated. "But the sources of revenues available to pay for the cost of a highway project -- whether it uses the traditional financing approach or a public-private partnership -- are the same: specifically, tolls paid by users or taxes collected by either the federal government or by state and local governments. Therefore, absent restrictions on governments' ability to borrow, there is no difference between the amount those governments could raise themselves and the sums that public-private partnerships could raise because the same resources are available to remunerate investors in either case."
CBO found that private projects do hold an advantage in finishing projects on time and in the most cost-effective manner since the private firm's profits depend on the road opening as soon as possible so that the tolling revenue can begin flowing. Cost overruns generally come out of the pockets of the private companies, whereas traditional public transportation bureaucracies tend to be less cautious in monitoring and controlling how tax dollars are spent. Labor costs are generally 25 to 40 percent lower for private projects not bound by pricey labor union contracts. Only a superficial and incomplete analyses, however, conclude that the private financing model has a distinct cost advantage when all factors are considered, CBO found.
"In order to properly assess the difference in costs between securing financing through the traditional approach (generally as public debt) and obtaining it by private means, it is necessary to account not only for the interest paid on money borrowed for the project but also for the costs associated with the risks borne by taxpayers and the costs of financial transfers -- in the form of subsidized interest rates and advantageous tax treatment -- from the federal government to states and localities," the report explained. "If such a comprehensive measure is used, the costs of private and public financing are roughly comparable."
CBO analyzed the 21 toll road projects that have been completed in the US over the past twenty years at a cost of $16 billion. Though this is a small amount compared to the $1 trillion spent on roads over the same period, it accounts for 30 to 40 percent of new highway capacity. The rush to tolling began in 2008, and the real-world effect has then most tolled highways were built upon faulty models that overestimated traffic levels and tolling receipts. As a result, many of the projects went bankrupt, including the Camino Colombia Bypass in Texas, the Southern Connector in South Carolina and the South Bay Expressway in California. The public was frequently left paying for the mistake.
"The South Bay Expressway, which had received some financing from the federal TIFIA program, illustrates what can happen to taxpayers as the ultimate equity holders," the report explained. "The project filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2010, finally emerging in May 2011. The new financing and ownership structure required by the bankruptcy court imposed a loss of 42 percent on federal taxpayers, replacing the original TIFIA investment with a package of debt and equity worth only 58 percent of the original investment."
The costs are also passed along to the motorist. On the Chicago Skyway in Illinois, tolls fell in real terms by 25 percent from 1989 to 2004 while under public control. Under private control since 2005, they have increased 60 percent.
A copy of the report is available in a 4.5mb PDF file at the source link below.
Source:
Using Public-Private Partnerships to Carry Out Highway Projects (Congressional Budget Office, 1/6/2012)Wednesday, February 01, 2012
More Texas Cities Could See Red Light Camera Referendum
The effort to give voters a say in whether red light cameras are used in their community is spreading across Texas. Already, voters in College Station, Baytown, Houston and Dayton have rejected the use of automated ticketing machines. Yesterday the city council in League City voted to put the issue on the November ballot, and voters in Port Lavaca turned in sufficient signatures last week to force an election.
In League City, city leaders are looking to head off a public signature drive by asking voters not whether the camera program should be terminated immediately, but whether it should be continued when the contract expires in the year 2014. The cameras have been highly controversial in the Gulf Coast town where the devices have failed to reduce accidents, according to official data. City Councilman Dennis OKeeffe even won his seat last year by running on a "No Red Light Cameras" platform.
In Port Lavaca, cameras have been equally controversial, especially after the city and vendor Redflex were caught issuing red light camera tickets to drivers who had a green light (view story with video). The city ignored an anti-camera petition last March, so organizers have returned with a true referendum that strictly follows the rules laid down in the city charter, which places no time limit on a vote to repeal a city ordinance. As such, once the signatures are certified, the ordinance authorizing the cameras would be suspended pending the outcome at the ballot box.
"We predict the city will once again abuse the city charter by claiming this is a matter that would be a breach of public safety and deny suspension of the ordinance until the election," the group Port Lavaca Citizens Against Red Light Cameras said in a statement. "If the city does so we will know the city will do anything they can to save a failed program that has increased accidents and issued fraudulent tickets for drivers for going through green lights. If the council was truly concerned about a breach of public safety they would have never authorized the cameras and would have saved the additional accidents the cameras have caused."
Byron Schirmbeck, director of saferbaytown.com, spearheaded the successful referendum effort in Baytown. He told TheNewspaper that the next likely target will be Cleveland, a city of about 7600 about forty-five miles from Houston.
Tuesday, January 31, 2012
Kansas City, Missouri Red Light Cameras Increase Accidents
Red light camera vendor American Traffic Solutions (ATS) is furious that police in Kansas City, Missouri released a report last week evaluating photo enforcement intersections without giving the company a chance to modify the data. In many cities, ATS plays a key role in authoring such studies, but in this case the Kansas City police department went its own way, arriving at conclusions consistent with other, independent research on the topic.
"The results of the study are very interesting," the Kansas City report stated. "Accidents went up at some locations and down in others without any real clear patterns."
The department performed a computer analysis to identify 2500 crash reports dating from a year before camera activation in 2009 through two years after the devices were installed. The results were narrowed to the 17 photo ticketing intersections, and officers went through each report by hand to ensure only accidents that actually happened within the intersection were counted and crashes that were clearly unrelated to the traffic signal were excluded.
"These reviews involved looking at the actual report and gathering the data," the report explained. "While this was very time consuming there just simply isn't any other way to gather the data for a project like this."
The report found the overall number of accidents increased 12 percent from before cameras were installed to the two-year average after the devices began issuing tickets. Only counting the lanes that are monitored by cameras, the increase in collisions was 29 percent. Rear end accidents increased 17 percent. Right-angle accidents dipped 4 percent.
The worst performing intersection was at 59th and 71 Highway. This high-volume location saw injury accidents surge 121 percent, mostly caused by rear-end collisions. Of those rear-enders, 87 percent happened in a lane monitored by red light cameras.
Despite the mixed safety results, the cameras over the study period issued 197,494 tickets worth $19,749,400. As a result, the city police commission ordered the police special operations division to re-write the report under the supervision of ATS.
A copy of the report is available in an 800k PDF file at the source link below.
Source:
Study of Red Light Cameras in Kansas City, MO (Kansas City, Missouri Police Department, 1/24/2012)Monday, January 30, 2012
New Mexico Supreme Court Considers Photo Enforcement Cases
New Mexico's highest court will hear arguments tomorrow in challenge to the legality of the red light camera and speed camera program in Albuquerque known as "STOP." Voters last October rejected the automated ticketing machines operated by Redflex Traffic Systems of Australia, but the state supreme court's decision could impact other cities that still allow private companies to issue traffic tickets through the mail.
The justices are reviewing a pair of unpublished decisions in which the state court of appeals tossed out class action suits filed against Albuquerque last year. Tuesday's arguments will be based on a November 2006 speed camera ticket that Redflex mailed to Turner W. Branch, an experienced trial lawyer. When Branch did not pay the citation, Redflex sent a notice that demanded a $600 payment and threatened to confiscate his vehicle.
Turner argued that Albuquerque violated the state constitution by setting up its own inferior administrative courts to rule upon violations covered by the state vehicle code. This tribunal treats a criminal violation as a civil matter by declaring it a "public nuisance" to avoid providing full due process protections to vehicle owners accused by a machine. A split three-judge appeals court panel rejected these arguments, citing a March 2011 decision Titus v. Albuquerque.
"The council observed that 'many states and municipalities across the country have experienced decreases in red light violations by using red light cameras' and that this technology 'saves lives,'" Judge James J. Wechsler wrote for the majority. "Accordingly, the council concluded that the use of red light cameras and the implementation of photographic and electronic equipment to enforce speed limits would abate these nuisances... Given the council's findings, we can think of no circumstance where speeding or violating stop lights in Albuquerque would not pose a threat to the safety of the citizens of Albuquerque. Accordingly, we conclude that Albuquerque acted within its municipal authority as provided in Section 3-18-17(A) in enacting STOP and designating speeding and red light infractions nuisances."
Judge Michael E. Vigil strongly disagreed with his appellate court colleagues. He argued the program cannot have safety as its primary motivation because it seeks to collect penalties from individuals who did nothing wrong.
"STOP makes the mere owner of the vehicle absolutely liable for the fine imposed because of another person's act of driving," Vigil wrote in his dissent in the Titus case. "It therefore appears that the purpose of this scheme is to generate revenue income for Albuquerque, and not to abate the nuisance of speeding.... By penalizing a person or entity which does nothing except merely own a vehicle which is driven by another person over the posted speed limit, STOP is contrary to New Mexico law and unconstitutional. Since the majority disagrees, I dissent."
The state supreme court heard arguments on the Titus case on November 16.
A copy of the Titus case is available in a 350k PDF file at the source link below.
Source:
Titus v. Albuquerque (Court of Appeals, State of New Mexico, 3/9/2011)
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