Red light cameras ‘reducing intersection deaths’ in Toronto

The city of Toronto, Canada has seen an average drop of 40 per cent in the number of collisions causing a death or serious injury at intersections equipped with red light cameras, according to the Toronto Star. At some locations, there have been no deaths or serious injuries caused by collisions since the cameras were installed.The city has almost doubled its red light cameras as part of a plan it says is aimed at eliminating traffic death and serious injuries.
September 4, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

The city of Toronto, Canada has seen an average drop of 40 per cent in the number of collisions causing a death or serious injury at intersections equipped with red light cameras, according to the Toronto Star.  At some locations, there have been no deaths or serious injuries caused by collisions since the cameras were installed.

The city has almost doubled its red light cameras as part of a plan it says is aimed at eliminating traffic death and serious injuries. To date, 65 new cameras have been placed at intersections this year and are now operational, with another 10 to come that are still under construction or review.

In an e-mailed statement to the newspaper, Myles Currie, director of the city’s Traffic Management Centre said the city would traditionally remove cameras and relocate them to other locations. However, it was advised to retain the cameras from the previous phase. “They continue to maintain their effectiveness at those locations and moreover, anecdotally we are seeing a halo effect of the cameras likewise serving to reduce fatal and serious injury collisions at adjacent intersections as well,” he concluded.

Signage is key to making sure the cameras are effective, according to Brian Patterson, president and CEO of the Ontario Safety League. He said that unlike common tactics like speed bumps, increasing the number of red light cameras is one of the traffic calming and behaviour modification projects that really does work.

Enforcement

Related Content

  • Independent analysis finds speed cameras do not reduce accidents
    June 10, 2014
    An independent analysis carried out by engineer Dave Finney of Thames Valley, UK speed camera data has found an increase in injuries after the devices were installed. The analysis, to evaluate the effect of fixed speed cameras on the number and severity of collisions at the sites where they are installed, was carried out on two groups of sites. One group includes all fixed speed camera sites in the Thames Valley area (covering Oxfordshire, Buckinghamshire and Berkshire) that were active at the start of 2
    Read More
  • EdgeVis removes bandwidth barriers to mobile streamed video
    October 26, 2017
    A new generation of video compression can lower transmission costs of data and make streaming from mobile and body-worn cameras a reality, as Colin Sowman discovers. Bandwidth limitations have long been the bottleneck restricting the expanded use of video streaming for ITS, monitoring and surveillance purposes. Recent years have seen this countered to some degree by the introduction of ‘edge processing’ whereby ANPR, incident detection and other image processing is moved into (or close to) the camera, so
    Read More
  • Copenhagen: everything's gone green
    October 3, 2018
    As the ITS World Congress arrives in Copenhagen, Adam Hill finds out how Dynniq has been helping traffic flow – and CO2 reduction - in the Danish capital. Most of the time, ‘breathing easier’ is just an expression which indicates a metaphorical sigh of relief that something has worked out alright. But it can be literally true, too. Respiratory and other potential health problems which stem from pollution in the world’s increasingly urbanised environments have been well publicised and governments are
    Read More
  • ASECAP examines tolling’s trials, tribulations and triumphs
    September 4, 2018
    If you want to get up to speed on the main issues facing the transport sector and tolling companies, ASECAP Study Days event in Ljubljana was a good place to start. Colin Sowman reports (Photographs: Louis David). Increasing populations, ever-higher technical and safety requirements, and electric and hybrid vehicles will provide both challenges and opportunities for tolling companies. The annual Study Days event organised by ASECAP (the European association for tolling companies) examined all of these aspec
    Read More

Highlighted Content