Skip to main content

Kria

Applications in the field of enforcement are a mix of road safety technology, law and social impacts. Best practice is not necessarily defined by geographical area, but rather to the way the aforementioned factors are balanced by authorities. Enforcement practice can be described as ‘best’ where a system or operation is valuably applied in terms of road safety improvement while gaining overall public acceptance. In Italy, a land of frequent legal disputes around traffic enforcement, a number of discrete exa
March 16, 2012 Read time: 3 mins
Applications in the field of enforcement are a mix of road safety technology, law and social impacts. Best practice is not necessarily defined by geographical area, but rather to the way the aforementioned factors are balanced by authorities.
 Enforcement practice can be described as ‘best’ where a system or operation is valuably applied in terms of road safety improvement while gaining overall public acceptance. In Italy, a land of frequent legal disputes around traffic enforcement, a number of discrete examples of good practice present lessons for others to follow.

Some enforcement applications are easily recognised by all road users, such as 83 Kria’s T-ID automatic license plate recognition system applied to enforce vehicle access control in many Italian town and city centres. This traffic code law is perceived by most people in Italy to have brought a great improvement to safety and quality of life. An important lesson here, is that when a law brings substantial tangible benefit, it is well accepted.

Other applications are more challenging but can still be considered as best practice. Usually, speed and red light detections, even if related to more dangerous infringements, are not so readily accepted, because people have no immediate evidence of the related benefit of safe driving behaviour. Instead, a frequent response to enforcement is to accuse authorities of inflicting abuse.

Some Kria devices (T-RED red light enforcement cameras) are used by Tiziano Boselli, an Italian local police commander in the Province of Milan. He has used red light and speed enforcement for several years now and monitored trend curves of many road traffic parameters. Since T-REDs were installed, the number of accidents has evidently dropped in Milan by about 20% per year and this trend can be reasonably expected to continue. Boselli believes that the public administration must keep all drivers informed of the existence and reasoning of Milan’s overall road safety and enforcement strategy – and its positive results.

Traffic monitoring and enforcement devices can provide more than just violation detection. Their use should be extended to ITS and security fields. By this means the public and both public and private sectors may appreciate more the benefits of these types of device.

Kria T-EXSPEED monitoring cameras have been installed on highways in the Region Valle d’Aosta for gathering traffic speed statistics, identifying dangerous goods, vehicle counting and classification as well as detection of black-listed license plates. Information collected is separated at origin and sent to different relevant destinations, such as various regional authorities’ servers and control rooms, including the region’s fire department. Costs for installing and operating the devices are shared among the stakeholders, but the data is strictly and securely managed by each.

The lesson we learn from this example of best practice is that enforcement or monitoring devices can and must be demystified; they must appear to all as good multi-purpose tools for use by open minded public administrations.

For more information on companies in this article

Related Content

  • Enforcement a key part of the road safety solution
    January 31, 2012
    The Partnership for Advancing Road Safety is a new organisation set up in the US to push the national debate on speed and intersection safety, something which hitherto has been absent. Here, executive director David Kelly explains the organisation's work. With moves to address drink/drug driving and the wearing of seatbelts starting to prove successful in the US, the use of inappropriate speed and poor driving at intersections have become responsible for a proportionately greater number of the deaths and in
  • The benefits of Lidar
    March 21, 2022

    While Lidar is gaining ground in the ITS industry, it has not yet reached the level of mass adoption where it shows up frequently in requests for proposals (RFPs) from cities and DoTs.

  • Machine vision develops closer traffic ties
    January 11, 2013
    Specifiers and buyers of camera technology in the transportation sector know what they need and are seeking innovative solutions. Over the following pages, Jason Barnes examines the latest developments with experts on machine vision technology. Transplanting the very high-performance camera technology used in machine vision from tightly controlled production management environments into those where highly variable conditions are common requires some careful thinking and not a little additional effort. Mach
  • Bringing enforcement standards into line
    March 1, 2013
    Difficulties with the apparent accuracy of enforcement systems have been making the headlines in the United States over recent months. Jon Masters investigates the causes and possible cures. Online newspaper reports in the United States over recent months have painted a picture of the authorities struggling to keep on top of their speed and red light enforcement pro­grammes. Among a host of stories put out by the Washington Post and others on the subject of speed cameras during January, there were reports