Review of Red Light Camera Program Management

Executive Summary

On July 18, 2014, the Chicago Tribune published a report detailing “sudden spikes” in the number of violations captured by red-light cameras (RLCs) at some intersections in Chicago. According to the Tribune report, Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) officials were unaware of these anomalies until notified by Tribune reporters, and CDOT could not explain the anomalies. The Tribune report concluded that “the deviations in Chicago’s network of [384] cameras were caused by faulty equipment, human tinkering or both.”

At the request of the Mayor and members of the City Council, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) reviewed the City’s RLC program to better assess the program generally and the issues identified by the Chicago Tribune report in particular.

In order to provide a rapid response to both constituent requests and public concerns raised by the Tribune report, OIG conducted a limited scope review rather than a comprehensive audit, which would have required additional months of document and data collection, review and analysis. Our conclusions are therefore limited to the evidence we were able to obtain and verify in this short timeframe. In addition, OIG did not review the validity of individual violations captured during the enforcement anomalies, which was the focus of a separate review the City conducted with the assistance of a contractor retained for that purpose. Rather, OIG’s goals were to,

• determine the contract parameters and document historical management of the RLC program;
• ensure that the system was and is operating pursuant to the applicable contract provisions; and
• ascertain if CDOT is equipped to identify and expeditiously address ticketing anomalies and other problems in the future.

OIG’s review revealed that CDOT’s management of the RLC program as operated by Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc. was insufficient to identify and resolve the types of issues identified in the Tribune report. Specifically, CDOT failed to request and review reports from Redflex that may have revealed enforcement anomalies as they occurred and failed to enforce the terms of its contract with Redflex, which required Redflex to evaluate data and identify any anomalies in RLC system activity.

Under its new contract with Xerox State & Local Solutions, Inc., CDOT has taken steps to improve the Department’s RLC contract management. OIG encourages CDOT to proactively monitor the program and address issues, including any anomalies, as they arise.

RLC program information OIG reviewed did not contain evidence that the City or Redflex manipulated the RLC program with the intention of improperly increasing red-light violations, although due to missing Redflex maintenance records OIG could not conclusively dismiss this possibility.

During the course of OIG’s review, CDOT identified likely proximate causes for three of the twelve intersections specifically named in the Tribune report. OIG reviewed CDOT’s findings regarding these locations and found them consistent with source documentation and available records. Specifically, CDOT found:

• At the intersection of 119th and Halsted, the trigger speed for the approach dropped from 15 mph to as low as 5 mph for a period of approximately 7 weeks in 2011. This drop resulted in 1,618 additional citations that would not have been issued had the trigger speed remained at 15 mph.
• At the Kimball-Lincoln-McCormick intersection, the detector in the right turn lane was largely non-functional for several years. The “spike” periods identified by the Tribune were the brief periods—usually only a few days or a week—when the detector in the right lane was functional. Since Xerox took over operation of the program, the daily violation counts have been generally consistent with those in the “spike” periods, which suggests that the anomalous periods were the only times the system captured events in this lane. OIG estimates that the broken system may have failed to identify as many as 45,444 violations over a four-and-a-half year period.
• For the Halsted-Fullerton-Lincoln intersection, which experienced a two-day enforcement anomaly on August 2 and 3, 2012, one of the traffic signal poles at the location was damaged late on August 1 or early on August 2, 2012, and, as a result, the traffic signals mounted on that pole were reported as not being visible to drivers the next day. The end of the two-day enforcement anomaly appears to coincide with CDOT’s August 3 repair of the damaged pole as the affected RLC system captured 33 violations on August 3 prior to the completion of CDOT’s repairs and only 1 violation after the repairs. CDOT stated that the increase in RLC violations at the intersection may have resulted from inattentive drivers ignoring the still-functional traffic signal and driving through the intersection during a red phase.

OIG notes that CDOT has thus far been unable to identify a likely proximate cause for the enforcement anomalies at the other nine intersections in significant part because CDOT and Redflex failed to identify the anomalies in a timely fashion and, as a result, CDOT was unable to obtain and analyze relevant data, including the complete set of Redflex maintenance data, for the relevant locations. Given the passage of time and the unavailability of that data, it is possible that the proximate causes for other enforcement anomalies may never be identified.

This report provides background on the RLC program and its vendors, a description of the specific causes of enforcement anomalies identified by CDOT, OIG conclusions regarding CDOT’s management of the RLC program, and detailed OIG suggestions for improving management of the program.