MORE than 800 forward-facing cameras from Perth-based DTI installed on every San Francisco Muni buses led to 3625 tickets handed out to vehicles blocking a bus’s path over the past 12 months.
Since the first cameras were tested on San Francisco’s Muni buses 24,125 tickets have been awarded to owners of cars parked illegally or pulled over where a bus camera could photograph them.
The cameras are constantly running, and Muni staff view footage and record license plate numbers of offenders. Revenue to the city is considerable – parking in a transit-only lane or a crosswalk is $US110 and stopping in a bus stop will cost you $288.
According to Muni spokesperson Paul Rose, the cameras have led to fewer cars double-parking in front of buses and fewer commercial vehicles stopping in bus paths to unload.
Rose said the agency hasn’t received a single privacy complaint since they went into use.
DTI's depot-based wireless infrastructure and comprehensive back-end CCTV management system centralises and coordinates bus CCTV data and allows video evidence to be recovered from the buses through an on-line automated CCTV booking system providing easy management of equipment, video retrieval and video storage.
Muni buses are equipped with DTI's mobile digital recorder and high resolution colour cameras, plus wireless infrastructure.
