Pilot program to discover best place for Hawaii’s red-light cameras

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The Hawaii Department of Transportation (HDOT) recently launched a pilot project to determine whether installing red-light cameras is feasible at various Honolulu intersections.

“Running red lights is a major contributing factor to urban crashes nationwide,” Ed Sniffen, HDOT deputy director for highways, said. “Our goal for the two-year pilot is to make our streets safer by changing driver behavior.”

Step one in the two-year pilot program is to conduct engineering studies at intersections and narrow the number of intersections down to 10. The studies began last month and are expected to be completed next month.

The studies will identify conditions that may contribute to red-light running violations as well as appropriate countermeasures.

HDOT worked with the city and county of Honolulu’s Department of Transportation Services to select the potential intersections. They were selected based on site suitability and crash history.

Step two in the process will be the installation of signage that gives notice of the presence of automated enforcement at the 10 intersections.

Camera systems will then be installed, and personnel will be trained to review the images captured by the systems.

HDOT awarded the contract to Redflex Traffic Safety Systems, now owned by and operating as Verra Mobility, to install and support the red-light running program.