Evaluation of the British Columbia photo radar program
Date
2018-11-15
Authors
Chen, Greg
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
This dissertation assesses the photo radar program, a world-wide emerging but controversial automated police traffic speed enforcement program, as it was implemented in British Columbia. The dissertation is composed of three separate and related impact analyses: a macro study to assess the overall impact of the BC photo radar programs on speed and safety on BC highway systems, a site-specific study to verify the internal validity of the province-wide study, and a cost-benefit analysis to summarize the economic impact of the program to society.
The study found that the BC photo radar program was implemented through an extensive publicity campaign and the deployment of 30 photo radar units across the highway system in the province. The impact of the program on traffic speed was dramatic at photo radar deployment sites and limited at non-photo radar deployment sites, monitored across the province. At the photo radar deployment sites, on average, the proportion of speeding vehicles decreased from more than 60% in the warning letter phase to 37% in the first year and to 29% in the second year. The proportion of excessive speeding vehicles decreased from more than 10% in the warning letter phase to 3% in the first year and to 2% in the second year. At the non-photo radar monitoring sites, the proportion of speeding vehicles declined from 78% in the pre-PRP period to 73% in the first year and then increased slightly to 74% in the second year. The proportion of excessive speeding vehicles declined from 27% in the pre-PRP period to 22% in the first year and rebounded slightly to 23% in the second year.
Corresponding to the reduction in speed and speed variance, the program is found to be associated with a yearly reduction of 2,220 collision injuries, and 79 collision fatalities across the province. These numbers represent 14% and 26% reductions in traffic injuries and fatalities respectively. The site-specific analysis of the program corroborated the results of province-wide study.
The cost benefit analysis concludes that the program produced a net benefit of close to $120 million dollars per year from the societal perspective. The result is robust except for potential estimation errors of program safety effects. The estimated net benefit becomes negative if the real safety effect is one standard error below its expectation.
Description
Keywords
Traffic speed enforcement, Photo radar, British Columbia, Social sciences