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City Council report blasts speed camera program

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-ci-speed-camera-council-20150601-story.html


[photo] --This speed cameras is on Franklin St. at Pulaski St. {Photo by Algerina Perna} {Item#} (Algerina Perna / Baltimore Sun)
By Luke Broadwater The Baltimore Sun contact the reporter

    

City Council report blasts speed camera program

“Don't build a program if you can't operate it,” Councilman James Kraft said of city speed cameras

The City Council released a sharply critical assessment Monday of Baltimore's once-lucrative speed camera system, faulting the program's enormous size and lack of oversight.

"Don't build a program if you can't operate it. That message was sent loudly and clearly throughout our investigation," said City Councilman James B. Kraft, who led the probe.

"In hindsight," Kraft said, "virtually everyone agrees the program was too big, the Department of Transportation did not have proper personnel to handle it, and too few people were assigned to its operation."
Baltimore looks to relaunch speed camera program after failures

After review of flawed program, speed cameras could be going back on in Baltimore City.

Despite the concerns, the Rawlings-Blake administration said Monday it still plans to move ahead with a smaller speed camera program — and this week will issue a request for proposals to do the work. Officials pledged better oversight, and said the system will not feature controversial "bounty" payments to vendors based on the number of citations issued.

"We have been clear that a program is needed to improve safety on our roadways, particularly in areas near and around schools where many children are present," said William Johnson, the transportation department director. "The department will now work aggressively to incorporate these reforms and reinstitute a manageable program that is efficient and maintains the trust of Baltimore City residents."

    
Secret audit found city speed cameras had high error rates


The city's speed and red-light camera system, run for years by Xerox State & Local Solutions and briefly by Brekford Corp., was shut down in April 2013 after the speed cameras repeatedly issued erroneous tickets. An investigation by The Baltimore Sun found errors by many speed cameras, including tickets issued for slow-moving or stopped cars.  [ copy of the Jan. 2014 article is below ]

A leaked audit of the Xerox system later showed the errors were even more widespread than the city had disclosed, with some cameras having error rates of more than 10 percent. Tests of Brekford's system also disclosed widespread problems.


Kraft said Monday that the council's investigation, launched early last year, found the errors were a result of sloppiness, not corruption. He noted the rushed pace of city reviews of speed camera tickets under Xerox. The Sun reported in 2012 that the Baltimore Police Department expected each officer monitoring the program to review 1,000 to 1,200 of the machine-generated citations per shift — sometimes as many as five or six per minute.

The city system at one time featured 83 speed cameras, as well as more than 70 red light cameras. Over a decade, the network generated more than $140 million for city government through $40 speed camera citations given out in school zones and $75 red light camera tickets. The city is missing out on millions in lost revenue while the cameras are down.

The city was counting on collecting $11.4 million from speed cameras alone in 2013; $7.5 million in 2014 and $6.9 million in 2015, according to projections before the cameras were shut down.

The administration has budgeted $2.5 million in revenue from speed cameras in the budget that begins July 1. The administration does not expect a camera system to be running again until after Jan. 1.

The council issued nine recommendations for the speed camera program, including limiting the number of cameras, hiring a "full-time director" with prior experience running such a system, and setting up a special fund so that money generated by the cameras would not be not co-mingled with other revenue streams.

"It is our belief that the program should be reduced significantly," Kraft said.

After shutting the program down in 2013, city officials said they wanted to resurrect it in 2014. But the mayor pledged to wait for the City Council to complete its investigation before requesting new bids. Monday marked the end of that investigation.

Three speed camera companies have registered lobbyists with the city in an attempt to win the rights to run the system.

Last year, the Maryland General Assembly approved legislation that will provide new protections for motorists from erroneous tickets and other speed camera abuses. Among other measures, the legislation requires local governments to publish detailed annual reports and subjects contractors to damages if their error rate exceeds 5 percent.

The city reached settlement agreements with the two vendors — paying Xerox $2.3 million for invoices dating to late 2012. The city paid Brekford $600,000, plus $2.2 million for the purchase of 72 speed cameras that officials don't expect to use for enforcement.

The council's investigative report was critical of those settlements, particularly the payments to Xerox.

"Given the actions of Xerox and the damage caused to the City … there remains a question as to why the contract was 'paid out' or settled," the report states.

A Xerox spokesman declined to comment Monday, saying officials had not had time to read the report. Brekford officials did not respond to a request for comment.

lbroadwater@baltsun.com





Secret audit found city speed cameras had high error rates

Speed camera ticket for standing still [Video]
Caption Speed camera ticket for standing still [Video]
Xerox claims low speed camera ticket error rate [Video]
Caption Xerox claims low speed camera ticket error rate [Video]
Speed camera at Cold Spring Avenue questionable [Video]
Caption Speed camera at Cold Spring Avenue questionable [Video]
Speed cameras in Baltimore [Video]
Caption Speed cameras in Baltimore [Video]
Batts on speed cameras: 'We've made some mistakes' [Video]

Caption Batts on speed cameras: 'We've made some mistakes' [Video]

By Luke Broadwater and Scott Calvert, The Baltimore Sun

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/sun-investigates/bs-md-ci-speed-camera-audit-20140122-story.html#page=1

1/22/14

    

Baltimore's speed cameras likely charged motorists for thousands more erroneous tickets than previously disclosed, according to data from a secret audit conducted for the city last year and obtained by The Baltimore Sun.

Consultant URS Corp. evaluated the camera system as run by Xerox State and Local Solutions in 2012 and found an error rate of more than 10 percent — 40 times higher than city officials have claimed. The city got those findings last April but never disclosed the high error rate, refusing calls by members of the City Council to release the audit.

The city issued roughly 700,000 speed camera tickets at $40 each in fiscal year 2012. If 10 percent were wrong, 70,000 would have wrongly been charged $2.8 million.

City Council members reacted with dismay and anger when told Wednesday of the audit's results, asking why the Rawlings-Blake administration didn't reveal the high error rate months ago and take steps to fully refund fines paid by motorists.

"It's outrageous. No, it's beyond outrageous," said City Councilman Carl Stokes, who has been calling on the city to release the audit. "Who ever heard of a secret audit? We should have told the public immediately. We should have declared complete amnesty, that all of the tickets were null and void. If anybody paid, they should be paid back."

The audit identified 13 cameras with double-digit error rates, including one at Loch Raven Boulevard that was giving out more erroneous tickets than accurate citations.

A camera in the 1000 block of Caton Ave. had a 35 percent error rate, the audit found. A device at the 6500 block of Eastern Ave. had a 45 percent error rate. And a speed camera in the 5400 block of Loch Raven Blvd. had a 58 percent error rate.

"That is extraordinary," said City Council member Robert Curran. "Anything more than a 2 percent error rate is unacceptable."

Throughout 2012, city officials repeatedly claimed the error rate of their 83 cameras was "less than a quarter of one percent" in response to a Sun investigation that documented erroneous speed readings at seven cameras.

City officials said Wednesday that they shut down the entire speed camera program last spring — by then being run by a different company — within a week of reviewing the audit's findings. They pointed out that they have voided or refunded tickets they believed were obviously erroneous.

"Once it became clear that there were very high error rates, we didn't feel comfortable with the program, and we moved quickly to take it offline," said Kevin Harris, a spokesman for Mayor Stephanie Rawlings-Blake. "I think if you look at the actions we took, it's clear we did take it seriously, which is why we have voided and refunded all erroneous tickets and told the public immediately that the program would be discontinued until we could vouch for its accuracy."

City Councilman Brandon Scott said the city's Department of Transportation should have alerted the public to the audit's findings immediately. "We're going to have to work harder to restore public trust," he said.

A spokesman for Xerox, Carl Langsenkamp, said the company would have no comment on the audit. California-based URS Corp. did not respond to a request for comment.

Xerox operated Baltimore's speed camera program from the fall of 2009 through 2012, when the city put the contract up for bid again. After The Sun's report on problems with the system was published in November, Xerox said it had detected a 5.2 percent error rate at five cameras and took them off line in the weeks before its contract ended.

The city selected Brekford Corp. of Anne Arundel County to take over the system starting in January of last year. Brekford's brief tenure in 2013 was beset by problems; the city shut down their cameras in April and severed its contract with Brekford last month.

The city hired URS last February, in part to review the accuracy of the system as operated by Xerox.

The consulting firm looked at a sample of nearly 1,000 tickets from a random day in 2012 at 37 of the city's 83 speed cameras. The firm said it could vouch for the accuracy of about 64 percent of tickets. More than 10 percent were found to be in error, while another 26 percent were questionable.

While 13 cameras had double-digit error rates, 12 had no errors, the audit found. The company said it welcomed Xerox's response to their findings.

Despite calls from the City Council to release the audit, the administration does not plan to do so, Harris said. City Solicitor George Nilson, the administration's chief lawyer, has said releasing the audit would violate a settlement agreement with Xerox and "create obvious risks and potential exposure for the city."

In the settlement, the city agreed to pay Xerox $2.3 million for invoices from late 2012. The city also agreed to keep confidential any documents "referring or relating to, or reflecting, each party's internal considerations, discussions, analyses, and/or evaluations of issues raised during the settlement discussions."

The settlement was not approved by the Board of Estimates. Comptroller Joan Pratt has said the settlement should have come before the board for consideration.

In late February, the spending board agreed to pay URS $278,000 for work that included an audit of Xerox tickets. Nilson said the audit was "a critical part of the settlement negotiations and figured prominently in the conclusion of those discussions." He said it was "unequivocally done in anticipation of possible litigation."

Rawlings-Blake has said the city plans to pursue a smaller camera program this year.

In Annapolis Wednesday, state Sen. Jim Brochin, a Baltimore County Democrat, introduced a bill he said is intended to reform speed camera systems in Maryland, including requiring ombudsmen to hear complaints about erroneous tickets.

Brochin said he was concerned about the URS audit's findings, given that Xerox is the speed camera vendor for the state, Baltimore County, Howard County and elsewhere.

"I would hope that Baltimore County would look at this, study it, and do their own audit," Brochin said. "The one thing that's clear is the technology has not been perfected. It's not fair for the person that's driving, going the speed limit and getting a bogus ticket."

Last summer URS also monitored testing aimed at fixing and restarting the camera system under Brekford. Its findings — which the city released to The Sun in response to a public records request — showed persistent problems, including preventable errors.

This month, the city expanded its contract with URS. The Board of Estimates agreed to pay $237,000 for "additional independent monitoring services" of the city's speed and red-light cameras. The company will monitor "engineering services, documents and preparing of standard operating procedures and business rules," according to board records.

luke.broadwater@baltsun.com
scott.calvert@baltsun.com
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