California City Tests AI Cameras On Buses for Parking Tickets (ktla.com) 86
Los Angeles TV station KTLA reports:
It's an issue for cities across America: cars parked in bus lanes when they shouldn't be. Now, new AI camera technology is letting the buses themselves write tickets instantly.
Santa Monica recently tested the technology with their Big Blue Bus Line. Last year, they provided 7.7 million trips, but not all were on schedule due to cars improperly parked or stopped in dedicated bus lanes. "The question becomes how do we and other cities keep vehicles that should not be in the transit lane out of the lane," said Robert McCall, who oversees Community Engagement for the City of Santa Monica.
Santa Monica is among a growing number of cities exploring the use of AI cameras that can spot violations and issue tickets instantly. As buses drive their routes, special cameras capture the license plates of cars that shouldn't be parked or stopped where they are... Already, their cameras are installed in buses in New York City and soon, Washington, DC...
During Santa Monica's 45-day pilot, the system identified more than 500 potential violations. Each fine is nearly $300 dollars... Santa Monica still hasn't decided if they'll actually implement this technology, but it paves the way for a bigger trend in the future where AI will write tickets automatically when people break the rules.
"Although this might seem like a good way to keep people out of the bus lanes, it seems to me another encroachment on privacy and use of technology in ways that could harm more than help without oversight," writes long-time Slashdot reader neoRUR.
"Also what is the role of traffic police when it's all done automatically?"
Santa Monica recently tested the technology with their Big Blue Bus Line. Last year, they provided 7.7 million trips, but not all were on schedule due to cars improperly parked or stopped in dedicated bus lanes. "The question becomes how do we and other cities keep vehicles that should not be in the transit lane out of the lane," said Robert McCall, who oversees Community Engagement for the City of Santa Monica.
Santa Monica is among a growing number of cities exploring the use of AI cameras that can spot violations and issue tickets instantly. As buses drive their routes, special cameras capture the license plates of cars that shouldn't be parked or stopped where they are... Already, their cameras are installed in buses in New York City and soon, Washington, DC...
During Santa Monica's 45-day pilot, the system identified more than 500 potential violations. Each fine is nearly $300 dollars... Santa Monica still hasn't decided if they'll actually implement this technology, but it paves the way for a bigger trend in the future where AI will write tickets automatically when people break the rules.
"Although this might seem like a good way to keep people out of the bus lanes, it seems to me another encroachment on privacy and use of technology in ways that could harm more than help without oversight," writes long-time Slashdot reader neoRUR.
"Also what is the role of traffic police when it's all done automatically?"
please disambiguate headlines (Score:5, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
Does it matter to someone who won't bother to read the article?
Re: (Score:2)
Okay, so I read the article.
Still none the wiser - I assume it's a beachside suburb of Los Angeles but not within the confines of the LA city council?
Re: (Score:2)
What I meant is, if you care about surveillance and live in, or have connections to, the the state of California would you not read the article or at least the summary and thereby find out it's Santa Monica? It's not likely any resident of California who cares about AI surveillance would say "hmm .. who cares, that's California City--not my town" and not bother to read the summary or article.
Re: (Score:2)
I thought the same thing. Something like "Southern California beach city Santa Monica ... drones."
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
There is a Santa Monica in Argentina. They need to disambiguate, by saying Santa Monica, California. Not CA because .ca is Canada.
Or maybe naming a city California City is stupid, especially because it is a city where famously no one actually lives, except now they do. Also, they refer to themselves as City of California City. Really: https://www.californiacity-ca.... [californiacity-ca.gov]
Or maybe the headline could have just said "City in California".
Re: (Score:2)
This will soon be obsolete (Score:4, Insightful)
When cars come equipped with full self-parking, they'll drop you off at the front door and then find a parking space to pull into. If the parking space has a time limit, it will re-park itself when the time comes.
Owning Cars may become Obsolete (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
It's all fun and good till your car shows up and you sit where someone has used it as a toilet.
People demand private transportation.
Re: (Score:2)
It's all fun and good till your car shows up and you sit where someone has used it as a toilet.
Promises, promises....
Re: (Score:2)
People demand private transportation.
What people demand doesn't matter, what drives company profits does. You won't own a car in the future because:
1) Once reliable self-driving cars become a reality, the car insurance groups will make it impossible to get insurance, (a legal requirement to drive the car for any practical use in many states), for a car without a self-driving system. Gradually increasing the requirements until the people inside have no control at all beyond setting a destination.
2) As self-driving cars become more prevalen
Re: (Score:2)
2) As self-driving cars become more prevalent in use, governments will demand the ability to order them around against the wishes of their occupants. (Get out of the way of EMS / Fire / Police /
How would they know what your wishes are, because you're not the one driving. Unless the manufacturer has a nice big "drive like an arsehole" button, self driving cars will most likely do this because that's what normal, functional, non psychopathic adults do when driving.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
More than that: not only must we defend their right to be arseholes, we must defend their right to have the tools of arseholery provided for free in the most convenient manner possible. Anything else is like unconstitutional or something.
Re: (Score:2)
The point was to try and include as much of the driving behavior spectrum as possible to drive home the idea that political ideology aside personal choice in how the car behaved would be curtailed.
Re: (Score:2)
This is dumb shit.
Yes if you don't drive the car you get less choice on how it's driven. And no, companies doing it for your are not going to put extra effort in just so you you can do dubiously legal things.
Your choice is no more"curtailed" than is a taxi driver told you to eff off if you asked him to not Niice aside for an ambulance.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
It's all fun and good till your car shows up and you sit where someone has used it as a toilet.
You don't use public transport much, do you? Or do you live somewhere that is particularly uncivilised?
Re: (Score:2)
I live in a relatively civilized place where the previously freely available public bathrooms at the local marina had to be closed because folks using them couldn't do so in a sanitary fashion (i.e., crapping on the floor, not in the toilet, pissing on the walls, etc.) I would not be too surprised to find some subculture that would be amused by crapping on car seats if they could manage to do so anonymously enough.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:1)
It's all fun and good till your car shows up and you sit where someone has used it as a toilet.
I'm sure there's an AI specializing in poop detection.
Re: (Score:2)
Ok so what should we do about our government-owned roads? Would privatizing them improve mobility or make it worse?
Re: (Score:2)
But in many places ownership and exclusive use is still valued, as is care for a car... communal cars would end up looking about as good as public toilets.
This whole deal of literally shitting in something that might also be used by another person is as far as I can tell a uniquely American problem. Where I live, public transport including buses are and not overloaded with filth. I took one yesterday from near my house to the second closest cinema, watched Barbie, had a drink and some food after then went h
Re: (Score:2)
... communal cars would end up looking about as good as public toilets.
Maybe where you live. Where do you live? I want to avoid places where people hold their fellow human beings in such contempt.
Re: (Score:2)
The same AI-driving technology may mean that owning a car, or at least a second car, becomes obsolete.
I love your optimism, but no. So much of car ownership is tied up in status. No amount of self driving is going to make that obsolete. If car ownership was on the whole price sensitive, then people would buy cars they need, not lot of pristine F150 Raptor Supercrew [UTF8 code point for eagle screech] with alloy wheels and custom stitching.
Re: (Score:2)
So much of car ownership is tied up in status. No amount of self driving is going to make that obsolete.
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who own cars as a status symbol vs for purely practical reasons. However, even if I am wrong and they are commonly thought of that way status symbols change. A hundred-plus years ago you'd have been judged by the quality of your horse and carriage, further back the size of your house and number of servants etc. Perhaps in the future there will be luxury car companies that only provide limos when you call for one or even ones that remain with human driver
Re: (Score:2)
I think you vastly overestimate the number of people who own cars as a status symbol vs for purely practical reasons.
I think you vastly underestimate the number of SUVs and trucks on the road. While there's a loud minority of people here who like to brag how they cosplay as a blue collar worker on the weekend haulin' stuff, there are a huge number of such vehicles in towns and cities used for town and city driving.
None of the SUVs round my way for example have tow hitches. People aren't driving their Chelse
Re: (Score:2)
If people have been using their means of transportation as a status symbol for hundreds of years, is that likely to change any time soon?
That's my point though - the means of transport remains the status symbol regardless of what that means it is, it does not stick at whatever it is today. If (because I readily admit it is far from certain) we switch to more of a rental service mode for cars then the status value of owning one will get quickly eroded because it will be hard to tell who owns vs. who rents one for much less money and a status symbol needs to be a clear, well-recognized symbol of wealth or power to be effective. This is why ow
Re: (Score:2)
That's my point though - the means of transport remains the status symbol regardless of what that means it is, it does not stick at whatever it is today.
Yeah but I contend it's the ownership of the means. More baller[*] to own a Rolls Royce than rent one for the day as it were.
If (because I readily admit it is far from certain) we switch to more of a rental service mode for cars then the status value of owning one will get quickly eroded because it will be hard to tell who owns
That's a big if: why would we
Re: (Score:1)
If parking is like most urban areas, just have the AI car just drive around the block really slowly until it is time to get picked up. If nobody is directly behind the car, have it just stop and wait until someone honks at it, and have it continue around some more.
Re: (Score:2)
just have the AI car just drive around the block really slowly until it is time to get picked up.
So... basically park your car in the moving traffic lane?
That's a textbook example of a strategy that works fine... until everyone does it.
If everyone just had their cars constantly circling, it would generate lots of excess traffic. Then the street is a parking lot and nobody can get anywhere.
Re: (Score:2)
A better solution would be large parking areas similar to the cellphone parking lots near airports. Businesses could have 5 minute drop off zones. You get out of your car and instruct the car to find the "open parking area" nearby. Who cares if the parking area is 12 blocks from where you are? The car parks itself and waits for you to call it back. When you're ready to leave, you call your car 10 minutes before you need it and wait for it to arrive. You wait at the drop off zone for your car and then
Re: (Score:2)
When cars come equipped with full self-parking
This may be news to you, but some people in California do not own a car, and they also need to go around places.
Re: (Score:2)
For smaller towns that might work, but in areas where most of the parking is ramps and/or lots with a pay-kiosk, there'll just be a swath of person-less cars aimless driving around the the neighborhood until the owner calls the car back. I can't imagine that would go over well.
Why? (Score:1)
... so, like... why wasn't this just a camera with a shutter button next to the steering wheel that could then have tickets dealt with at EOD or whenever the camera sync'd - non-AI image recognition shouldn't have trouble figuring out if a car is improperly parked in the bus lane from an image.... This seems like an overly complex, expensive, and kinda pointless system.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't think it's all that complicated, and you want your bus drivers paying attention to driving rather than looking for scofflaws to bag.
As for the privacy issues, you don't really have an expectation of privacy for things you do with your car on the street. Things only start to get dicey when data gets transferred to other aggregating organizations that use it for purposes other than what it was justified for -- for example a database which tracks your movement built from multiple sources.
The pre-tech
Re: (Score:2, Troll)
"...you want your bus drivers paying attention to driving rather than looking for scofflaws to bag."
But you don't need them to be looking when the entire point is that they're parked in the lane in front of the bus.
"As for the privacy issues..."
Who brought up privacy issues?
"...data gets transferred to other aggregating organizations that use it for purposes other than what it was justified for..."
Seems like you believe the purpose is not to catch people parking in bus lanes.
"The pre-tech analogy is that if
Re: (Score:2)
The person who submitted the article brought up privacy. You should be less sensitive.
Re: (Score:1)
stay above 50 tickets an day or get an mark on you (Score:1)
stay above 50 tickets an day or get an mark on you record
Re: (Score:1)
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Although this might seem like a good way to keep people out of the bus lanes, it seems to me another encroachment on privacy and use of technology in ways that could harm more than help without oversight,"
How is this an encroachment on privacy? You parked your car in a place it shouldn't be, seen by everyone around. This isn't in your garage.
Do try to come up with a better excuse for why you shouldn't get a ticket for blocking a bus lane or bus stop. Sounds like you're one of these people [firerescue1.com].
Re: (Score:3)
This seems like the exact right time to give someone a ticket because they are currently, right at that exact moment, blocking the bus in defiance of the rules. It's not like "yeah, they're in the bus lane but it's not hurting anyone." The bus is there, get the fuck out of the way.
Re: (Score:1)
The problem really is that bus drivers violate traffic laws at rate that dwarves the parking violations they are complaining about. If you bicycle commute, you know what I'm talking about. A city bus is the most dangerous threat to cyclists.
Re: What? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: It's called automated 24/7 surveillance (Score:2)
Why restrict it to bus stops? Why not sidewalks to catch skateboarders? And parks to catch homelesd? Hell, we should get this *everywhere*
What are you going to use? Harsh language? (Score:5, Insightful)
A couple of decades ago I was riding an SF Muni bus which came up to a bus stop with a car parked in it. The driver used the external PA system on the bus to sardonically abuse the driver of the car until they ran out of the nearby store looking embarassed, jumped into the car, and drove off.
Tickets work better, but this was more amusing.
Also, cameras on buses to catch misuse of bus lane /bus parking has been standard in London for years.
when it goes wrong (Score:2)
Why limit it to bus lane parkers? (Score:2)
Add people going to fast or too slow or on a cell phone, double parkers and bike lane parkers.
Ticket them all and let AI sort it out.
Re: (Score:2)
Why bother with the AI? Never needed it before, and mailing out tickets has been done for decades.
Don't worry about the cops (Score:2)
They'll find other pretenses to shoot innocent people, or reasons to seize property to add to their horde of treasure.
Combine with a forklift car remover (Score:2)
Even better, pair the bus report with a car remover like this one even so often and they could be free of the blocked cars immediately! https://youtu.be/z3JoCZ6AC48 [youtu.be]
Not surprising (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Santa Monica was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1979, with plans to perpetuate "class struggle" by removing the middle class and leaving the city to the 1% and the homeless.
Yes, quite true. It was not known as The People's Independent Republic of Santa Monica for no reason.
This stuff is already done in Austin... (Score:1)
The local university in Austin has people with Priuses and EVs that drive around and already have these types of AI based scanners. The driver does nothing... the on-board system flags the vehicle and sends a parking ticket via mail, or sends the tow truck driver, all 100% automated.
Santa Monica is old tech.
Re: (Score:2)
Multiple colleges that I have been involved with have had automated plate readers scanning for parking violators, going back to 2010. When my kids started college, I told them that the one hard and fast rule about being at college was "Do Not F*ck With The College Parking Police". My daughter failed to pass on this message with sufficient emphasis, and so her boyfriend ended up getting a ticket while visiting her at her dorm one weekend.
Urban parking enforcement doesn't hold a candle to college/universit
Doesn't go far enough (Score:1)
Merely ticketing cars in bus lanes?
Why bother with the cameras. Instead install giant steel plows on all buses and give them the go-ahead to "gently displace" any cars found in the bus lane. I know at least 50% of the bus drivers I've ever been in buses with would go for this in a heartbeat...
On second thought, add back in those cameras and provide weekly clips of cars being displaced on YouTube, with the ad revenue going to help fund the transit department for that city.
Re: (Score:2)
I know at least 50% of the bus drivers I've ever been in buses with would go for this in a heartbeat...
As would every single bus passenger.
Why specify a $300 fine at this point? (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
Or perhaps, instead of all your mad conspiracy nonsense, there's already an existing fine for blocking a bus lane, and this technology simply facilitates the writing of a ticket that would have been written in any case, if there were enough bylaw enforcement officers on staff to put one on every bus.
Re: (Score:1)
the decision has been made (Score:1)
“Santa Monica still hasn't decided if they'll actually implement this technology”
do they think we still fall for that claptrap? of course these cameras are going online. there’s money to be made and people to be controlled. please just tell us the truth.
Encroachment of privacy? (Score:2)
Driving on a public road using public infrastructure is a heavily regulated activity that requires among other things the vehicle to be identifiable clearly at all times for the purpose of enforcing rules.
If Slashdot read neoRUR thinks that being seen on a camera IN PUBLIC is an encroachment of their privacy I highly suggest they dig a whole under their house, climb in it and never come out again for fear of someone seeing them.
Why is AI involved? (Score:2)
persecution (Score:2)
Another nail in the coffin. Cities love to persecute their citizens. LA can't do anything about rampant crime, but it's great at fleecing people who need to momentarily park their car SOMEWHERE. This is why people leave these places. Eventually, even leftists realize they are being screwed.