Safety Impact of Red-Light Cameras in Vancouver, British Columbia

摘要

Several studies showed that red-light running is a significant problem at signalized intersections. To promote traffic law compliance, conventional police enforcement can be supplemented with technology such as intersection safety cameras (ISCs), more often referred to as red-light cameras (RLCs). Since 1999, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia has implemented the ISC program to help reducing red-light running at signalized intersections. During 2011, the program was expanded and upgraded with permanent RLCs at each selected intersection with no need of camera rotation among sites as in the past. This study evaluates the safety impact of installing RLCs at 28 signalized intersections in the city of Vancouver, British Columbia. The safety impact is estimated by the change in total collisions, property-damage-only and severe (fatal plus injury) collisions. The methodology used in this research was a before-after evaluation with full Bayesian estimation of a Poisson-lognormal intervention (PLNI) model. The results were found in line with other studies showing a statistically significant reduction of 8.9% in severe (fatal plus injury) collisions and a non-statistically significant small reduction of 3% in property-damage-only collisions. Total collisions showed a statistically significant reduction of 5.3%.