Philly Bus Cameras Catch Over 20,000 Bus Lane Violations

Since late April, the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) has been monitoring bus lanes and bus stops on two routes via bus-mounted cameras, documenting 4,000 average violations per week, according to an article by Thomas Fitzgerald in The Philadelphia Inquirer.

The agency did not issue any citations, but used the experiment as an opportunity to study the impact of bus lane blockages on transit speed and reliability. “Buses navigating Philadelphia traffic average a speed of 8 mph, SEPTA says, slower than the national average of about 14 mph. Every year, congestion in Center City causes 1.7 million hours of passenger delays and adds $15.4 million to the transit agency’s operating costs, according to a 2019 Econsult Solutions study commissioned by SEPTA.”

The agency will weigh whether to create an enforcement program for bus lane violations, which has shown positive results in New York. As Fitzgerald explains, after beginning to enforce bus lane blocking violations, New York’s MTA reported “big increases in travel speed on some routes and a 30% drop in bus crashes on one major route because operators don’t have to swing into the traffic lane to avoid obstacles as often.”