Santa Barbara Officials Say Traffic Cameras at City Intersections Are Not ‘Big Brother’

Cameras that detect motion have been installed at many of the busier intersections only to help with traffic flow

A camera sits atop the mast arm of a traffic signal at the intersection of Chapala and Haley streets in Santa Barbara. City officials say the cameras are only to help traffic flow. (Lara Cooper / Noozhawk photo)

By Lara Cooper, Noozhawk Staff Writer | @laraanncooper | Published on 02.01.2012

The traffic cameras hovering above Santa Barbara intersections may conjure up fears of Big Brother surveillance, but the city’s traffic engineers say the cameras are only to help with traffic flow.

Cameras have been installed at many of the city’s busier intersections during the past several years, according to traffic engineer Derrick Bailey. He said many intersections have timed lights, but busier intersections have the traffic cameras installed to detect motion and maximize the green time at the light.

“You get a lot of people thinking Big Brother is watching, but it’s nothing like that,” Bailey said. “We can’t even play the video back.”

Bailey says the city doesn’t record anything, so people who call the city asking for video after they’ve been in accident are disappointed.

“The resolution is really low, and we can’t even tell the make and model of the vehicles,” he said.

Only with the camera at the intersection of State and Mission streets can the city see video, and only then it is a live stream and unable to be played back.

The cameras are mounted on the mast arms of the traffic signals on Chapala Street and Upper State and are slated for other intersections.

One will go in at Anacapa and Carrillo streets as the city rebuilds that intersection. Bailey said T-bone collisions have long been an issue there, and the cameras will be put in along with a mast arm for the traffic signals as well as pedestrian counter screens for the crosswalks there.

— Noozhawk staff writer Lara Cooper can be reached at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). Follow Noozhawk on Twitter: @noozhawk, @NoozhawkNews and @NoozhawkBiz. Connect with Noozhawk on Facebook.

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» Overtaxed Taxpayer on 02.01.12 @ 11:41 PM

Traffic tickets are extortion for government pensions, the increase in insurance premiums is already a huge motivating factor already.

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» John Locke on 02.02.12 @ 09:40 AM

How does the public view the video feeds?

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» sbdude on 02.02.12 @ 03:55 PM

“Traffic tickets are extortion for government pensions, the increase in insurance premiums is already a huge motivating factor already.”

The City of Santa Barbara doesn’t have any red light infraction cameras, so I’m not sure where your comment comes from.

As for how the video detection cameras work, they detect vehicle presence on the principle of disturbance. Small “zones” are arranged in the camera’s field of vision. When a vehicle enters the camera’s field of vision, the pixels in the detection zones are disturbed. When this occurs, the video processor sends a signal to the controller that there is a “call” for that signal phase associated with the zones. Depending on the signal timing (there may be more time left on an adjacent phase before the signal changes), the controller will react accordingly. They do not detect by “seeing” a car, which is why they also work for motorcycles and bicycles (and pedestrians in some cases).

The video is usually low-resolution, high-contrast grayscale. It is possible to determine/guess the general make and model of a vehicle, but the resolution is not such that license plates or facial features can be seen. It is also possible to record the video at a centralized location (depending on the make and model, but not in the controller cabinet itself), but most cities do not due to the storage requirements and the added cost.

The short of it is the City is not Big Brother, and the cameras are only useful for traffic. When they start hanging surveilance cameras (the little round guys that can rotate 360-degrees) on street lights and signal poles, then you can start worrying.

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» AN50 on 02.02.12 @ 05:25 PM

Righty-o sbdude. These are image processing cameras. They were never meant and don’t have the capability to photograph you. True video capture for license plate ID in the event of an infraction is expensive and involves a lot more technology. These cameras are used to replace the inductive loop wires they used to bury in the road way.

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» sbskater on 02.05.12 @ 12:38 PM

@sbdude You are entirely correct. Good explanation. Furthermore, the city does have two 360 degree pan-tilt zoom cameras mounted that could be construed as “big brother”, they are mounted at two intersections along the busiest corridor in SB. Misused, could spy on things around the locations and zoom right down on faces and most details, but i know for a fact that there is no recording device hooked up, or that the only 3 people that have access to the camera have the time to regularly monitor and use the cameras. They are primarily used to remotely monitor large traffic events, construction detours, or other occurrences that require monitoring some of the major cooridors in the City, in case light timing changes or action can be taken to address any major concerns.

Its amazing that the adding of video detection is news at all. http://youtu.be/nsy7vrlM8C4

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