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San Diego’s Smart Streetlights Yield a Firehose of Data
- deogeo 8y agoSecure beneath the watchful eyes... only these record audio as well. Hope you didn't plan on having a conversation in private.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- srcmap 8y ago"The city is also getting ready to use the parking data to help people find a parking space. " I can see the "real" conversations between the sales person and city officials. "We can tell you when and where exactly the parking violations is happening and guide enforcers directly to that car. This is not an expense, it is a revenue generating machine." Every $1000 investment generate $xxxx ARR ticket revenue - easy math.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThe comments about "optimizing for law enforcement" (or something like that) were a dead giveaway as to who's driving the way this system will be implemented.
- mc32 8y agoAnd still they won't be able to help law enforcement track down the delinquent who broke your car window or worse.
- ams6110 8y agoRight. It's OK to spy on everyone except the homeless and vagrants, because that might be offensive.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoThe delinquent who broke your car window has a pretty good chance of not paying whatever fine he's given (and arresting him when they come across him after a bench warrant is issued still costs money, even if he does eventually pay). You will almost certainly pay your parking ticket promptly and without causing the system to incur additional cost. Going after generally law abiding normal people has a much better ROI.
- kolbe 8y agoI hope government doesn’t turn into that. The legal system is supposed to maximize justice, not revenue.
- longhorn_alum 8y agoMeanwhile, on planet Earth
- kolbe 8y agoThe United States does not maximize revenue in the slightest. We routinely use the justice system to unnecessarily prosecute and incarcerate the poor at a huge expense.
- nvusuvu 8y agoFor-profit prison systems and perverse incentives.
- dkonofalski 8y agoI think you're looking at that from the wrong perspective. It's definitely generating revenue for someone but I think you're picking the wrong someone.
- flyingpenguin 8y agoThat's because you are looking at the United States as a whole. This police department ticketed this person for something and gets the revenue of the ticket. All other effects are costs for other departments. Positive on the books. This Justice processing department gets budgeted for processing the ticket. All other effects are costs for other departments. Positive on the books. ... This Court department gets budgeted for filing a warrant for this poor person's refusal to pay. The capturing and holding of this person will be a cost for other departments. Positive on the books. ... This prison gets paid for holding this prisoner, positive on the books. Every department is doing things which benefit them and the costs for that specific action don't show up negatively (even if they spawn later actions in other departments that generate costs for them). Every department is doing right by itself in the moment, and millions of dollars are lost.
- briffle 8y agoIn the state of Oregon, they can't prosecute car thieves, unless they literally catch them in the process of breaking in. (or the thief confesses to stealing the car) All they have to say, is they borrowed it from a friend, and didn't realize it was stolen. Something like this might actually be welcomed in Portland to cut down on car theft (its one of the top in the nation, since they literally walk right back out of the police station 2 hours later) https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2017/11/29/in-portland-you-can-steal-cars-over-and-over-and-get-away-with-it-heres-how/ https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2017/11/29/in-portland-you...
- Spooky23 8y agoThat will be driven by rfid enabled plates. Many jurisdictions are already doing lpr driven ticketing. A guy drives down the street, he parks at the end and prints the tickets.
- jstanley 8y agoYou don't even need RFID numberplates. The unique IDs broadcast by the (mandatory on new cars) tyre pressure monitoring sensors will do a pretty good job of uniquely identifying cars.
- cc439 8y agoMost TPM systems work by comparing the difference in wheel speed using the ABS sensors though (lower pressure = lower diameter = higher wheel speed than the other 3 wheels = low air pressure warning).
- jstanley 8y agoNice, I didn't know that!
- jhayward 8y agoAh, no. They all work by having an air pressure sensor in the interior of the wheel.
- jsight 8y agoThe comment you're replying to refers to an indirect system: https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=44 https://www.tirerack.com/tires/tiretech/techpage.jsp?techid=... I'm not under the impression that indirect is the most common system, as every car that I have owned has used a direct system.
- dsfyu404ed 8y agoMany vehicles are switching to indirect measurement (this is just my impression, I haven't exactly been tracking which years/models use what system). It's certainly cheaper, you only need to write the algorithm once. Early systems mostly used sensors. I'm not sure why they used sensors to begin with since it's not like there's been a big improvement in VR sensors (the thing used to track wheel speed) enabling more accurate measurement. I suspect that the unwieldiness of big engineering organizations plays a role.
- nck4222 8y agoI don't know if this was meant as a negative, positive, or neutral outcome of this, but I see it as positive. Public parking isn't going anywhere, so if this program can pay for itself by increasing parking revenue, while decreasing costs that it takes to generate that revenue (IE, more efficient checking of meters), then all the other civic benefits this data/program can create come "free". Such as improving fire response times, while decreasing cost of services: >It would be easier if we could use the traffic signals and street lights to clear the road from Point A to Point B, and then have the [streetlight] system detect how the fire truck is moving through the street, restoring traffic flow behind it. That would save us money on fire stations, because we build them based on response times. Improving response times means we might not need as many stations. The cynics will say this is will be used as excuse to remove resources for fire fighters, but if it can be done responsibly, and the data shows that outcomes will improve (and that outcomes do improve after implementing), I'm all for it.
- xapata 8y agoWhile we're at it, let's automate speeding tickets. Free up the police for other crimes.
- mikepurvis 8y agoThere's been a lot of work done in this area, with predictable backlash. I think the issue is that the most dangerous speeding is the kind which occurs in neighbourhoods and by schools ("50km/h in a 30km/h zone"). But the easiest to apply automatic enforcement against is highway speeding ("130km/h in a 100km/h zone"), so people legitimately complain that the enforcement isn't being applied where the danger is. The worst of it is that all the infrastructure is in place already for average speed enforcement on toll roads, since you know when everyone gets on and off the highway and all their license plates. But isn't the whole point of a toll road that you pay for the privilege of being out of traffic and going as fast as you can? Who wants to pay for a toll transponder only to get a bunch of speeding tickets in the mail the next month?
- Veelox 8y agoAs long as the change we well advertised and gave people time to adjust norms, I would be all for it.
- kolbe 8y agoWhy send enforcement? Get a neural net to determine who is illegally parked, and automatically send a ticket.
- w-m 8y agoThe idea of collecting lots of audiovisual data all over a city without a clear plan of what to do with it seems mad, outright dystopian to me. The article describe how the city suddenly has much more data than what they needed or wanted and that they have to start training their people in data science now. There's no mention of privacy at all. I'd see having too much data ("But it’s like we asked for a cold drink of water and got shot in the face with a firehose") more of a liability and danger for the people of the city than a great opportunity. Public projects should approach problems from the reverse. Figure out what problem you need to solve, then define what the minimal amount of data is that you need to capture. Make a plan how to guarantee privacy and anonymity, and if you have all that, go and put out some sensors. Not the other way round.
- kolbe 8y agoThis is going to happen sooner or later. The efficiency gains and extra data to help the justice system come to accurate judgments is far too large. People will ultimately want it. Or cities that do it will ultimately become so well run that they will draw talent and capital from cities that refrain. Cameras and microphones everywhere will win out. What we need to to is change the laws that these systems will enforce. Laws that were once designed to punish people harshly because they’re infrequently applied (like speeding) cannot exist once the enforcement mechanism catches it all the time.
- Legical 8y ago> The efficiency gains and extra data to help the justice system come to accurate judgments is far too large That's an admirable way of looking at the US justice system, but not quite how it really works. The system is adversarial, and "the truth" is a narrative advocated by one of the combatants. Given enough data, a DA could choose which facts fit their narrative and present a very convincing "truth" to a jury. Unless defendants have access to the entire dataset and can select their own datapoints to refute that narrative, they're fighting at an extreme disadvantage. Picture a scenario where a person gets murdered, and you're on trial because the only evidence the police have is a smart streetlight log of your car's whereabouts that show you parked in front of a mob-owned business and later in front of the victims house. Your truth is a simple dinner and date with the victims neighbor. The DA's truth is "backed by data". Yes, this sounds far-fetched and may be an oversimplification, but it's important to remember that the justice system isn't programming and access to more general data doesn't necessarily level the playing field.
- dano 8y agoSan Diego resident here. One of the more valuable things I would like to see from this network of sensors is heat maps of traffic issues. For example, California rolling stops are the stuff of legend, and yet failure to stop is a significant cause of accidents and injuries. A heat map of the day of week, time of day, when these incidents are most likely could provide for selective and useful enforcement. Alternatively, that same data could be used to indicate that stop signs should be replaced with a yield sign in a particular direction or convert the entire intersection to a roundabout to ease traffic flow. My hope is that the data streams will be used in aggregate and not for individual enforcement. Trends are your friend.
- retro64 8y agoThis reminds me of something that happened to me several years ago. I was in living in a small town and a new cop moved in. He became very diligent about enforcing the law, and I was pulled over for a rolling stop along a lonely country road. He didn’t give me a ticket (I wasn’t even sure what I had done wrong), but he gave me a stern warning and let me go. I continued on my way (mildly fuming) and came to the next stop down the same road. So I “stopped” and began taking a left. I was still thinking about this when I looked to my left, then right and began to pull out. I realized I just did another rolling stop, so I hit my brakes and this time I actually stopped. And to my surprise a fast moving car emerged out of my right side blind spot. He was right at the crossing, and had I continued he would have smacked into me. I was in my pickup truck, and the blind spot was caused by an aftermarket plastic detail that was attached to both windows, so it made the ‘A’ frame 3 times as wide as it should have been, and the angle of the road and speed of the vehicle perfectly matched the location of this plastic piece, effectively hiding the oncoming vehicle so I didn’t catch it when I first looked right. I met that same cop some weeks later at a social gathering and of course went out of my way to shake his hand in gratitude.
- wrinklz 8y agoI had nearly the same experience. Leaving later than usual from work, I had to exit through an entrance gate, which left my approach to the road at a different angle than usual. I looked left and right, then started into the road (doubt that I stopped completely). A car seemed to appear from nowhere. I had time to stop, but was embarrassed and agitated. The next day I recreated the scene and realized that the window frame on the right side had a slope that matched the slope of a section of the road, blocking my view. The speed and timing of our approaches and the angles of the road and window frame hid the approaching car from my sight. A full stop would have allowed for the approaching car to move through my blind spot.
- SubiculumCode 8y agoThe only mention of privacy on that page was the site's privacy policy--the issue of privacy is more important than that.
- mistrial9 8y agothere is a military-connected startup that is making physical devices that can be placed on vehicles to track them, in that sensor network
- vkuruthers 8y agoDid anyone see any mention of the networking tech. their using in each light, e.g. 4G or something else?
- mrpippy 8y agoI remember when San Diego streetlights had radios strapped to them for the Ricochet wireless internet service. 56-128 Kbps wireless internet was a damn cool thing to see back in the late 90s/early 00s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ricochet_(Internet_service)
- rconti 8y agoOh man, we had a Ricochet model glued to the screen of our on-call laptop in Seattle in 99-2000.