Skip to main content

Siemens trials bus lane enforcement tech in New York

Siemens Mobility has won a $6.2m contract to trial enforcement technology on New York City’s buses.
April 1, 2019 Read time: 1 min

The move is part of NYC Transit’s plans to modernise the bus fleet and speed up rides – by gathering evidence on drivers who obstruct buses - and will involve putting the Automated Bus Lane Enforcement (ABLE) system on vehicles which operate on routes in Manhattan and Brooklyn.

The pilot will evaluate the product’s effect on bus speeds and travel times and follows what the transit authority calls “a successful…proof-of-concept test that determined an ABLE system could capture sufficient evidence to enforce bus lane traffic violations”.

The cameras will be installed on new buses that will be delivered over the next year.

Data from them will be transmitted to NYC Department of Transportation for review and processing.

Marcus Welz, president of Siemens Intelligent Traffic Systems in North America, says: “Technologies like this will…help mitigate traffic congestion and optimise travel time and safety, also benefiting road users who will spend less time sitting in traffic.”

Darryl Irick, NYC Transit senior vice president of buses, says the tech “will make a real difference toward clearing the way for our buses as they navigate some of the most congested roadways in the nation”.

Related Content

  • February 27, 2020
    NYC extends Brooklyn bus lane enforcement 
    MTA New York City Transit, one of the main operating agencies of New York’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA), has extended its bus-mounted lane enforcement cameras to Brooklyn’s busiest bus route.
  • October 5, 2015
    New York’s MTA tests new safety technology on buses
    As part of the MTA’s ongoing commitment to improving safety across all agencies and in coordination with New York City’s Vision Zero plan, MTA New York City Transit has begun to test new technologies aimed at improving safety for drivers, bus customers and pedestrians. The 60-day tests of pedestrian turn warning and collision avoidance systems will determine if a full pilot of one or both systems can proceed in 2016. NYC Transit’s Department of Buses is testing two systems on six buses: a pedestrian turn
  • October 29, 2014
    Xerox counts on machine vision for high occupancy enforcement
    Machine vision techniques can provide solutions to some of the traffic planners most enduring problems With a high proportion of cars being occupied by the driver alone, one of the easiest, most environmentally friendly and cheapest methods of reducing congestion is to encourage more people to travel in each vehicle. So to persuade people to share rides, high occupancy lanes were devised to prioritise vehicles with (typically) three of more people on board and in some areas these vehicles are exempt from
  • August 11, 2020
    New York installs more bus lane cameras
    With bus-mounted enforcement cameras, some transit speeds have improved nearly 34%