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.

Related Content

  • December 8, 2014
    Traffic management to the fore at Vision 2014
    Colin Sowman reviews some of the traffic-related exhibits at the 2014 Vision Show in Stuttgart. Traffic was a major theme at this years’ Vision Show in Stuttgart and several manufacturers used the exhibition to highlight their traffic-related equipment and applications.
  • February 2, 2012
    Free-flow tolling needs classification technology rethink
    The move to all-electronic fee collection should be encouraging tolling authorities to look again at whether their vehicle classification criteria and technologies remain at all appropriate. Bob Lees of Idris Technology writes
  • February 26, 2025
    Traffic monitoring solution installed by LMT in Riga
    Aim is to 'significantly improve the overall driving culture' in Latvian capital
  • January 26, 2018
    Jenoptik uses sensor fusion to avoid monitoring confusion
    Jenoptik’s Uwe Urban looks at the advantages of ‘sensor fusion’ for the ITS sector. When considering the ideal sensing and monitoring system to enable the ITS sector to deliver improvements in mobility and road safety, for general policing security and border protection, we have to think beyond radar-base systems or laser scanners. What is needed today are solutions for detecting and tracking vehicles while recording evidence to deacide if any action is necessary. There is no sole sensor capable of