The Intersection of Strategy and Measurement – The Red Light Camera

 By John A. Warden III, CEO, Venturist, Inc.

Recently, the city of Montgomery, Alabama began installing cameras at key intersections to photograph red light violators.  The objective, or Future Picture, relative to these cameras was recently stated in the local newspaper as:

The city has said repeatedly that the ultimate goal of the cameras is to highlight a problem in Montgomery and change driving habits in order to make the roads here safer. (Red Light Fines Start Today)

In Strategic Measures–Crucial for Success, I used the example of the fast food restaurant that considered speed of the drive-through to be a strategic measurement.  That didn’t work because drive-through speed is really a means (a tactic) to realize a strategic objective like profit.

Strategically measuring your strategy

Making the roads safer is certainly a laudable goal and is almost certainly strategically important.  The question then comes down to measurement.  The Montgomery program, which has just finished its “warning” period and is now moving on to real fines for transgressors, focused on the number of warning citations issued during the test period.   City officials said they thought the number would go down when people understood real money was at stake.  In other words, the city was using citations as their strategic measure of success.

At first glance, a decrease in citations (which we will assume is a good proxy for actual red light running violations) seems like it might be strategic.  But if it is, is it primary or secondary?  The stated strategic objective was to make roads safer.  If actual violations fell by half, could we assume a commensurate increase in safety? Maybe, maybe not.

If accidents remained the same or possibly even increased, we might conclude that the roads were not safer because of the cameras.  Could accidents happen at the same rate or increase if actual violations fell dramatically?  The answer is very definitely affirmative.  Let’s assume for simplicity that there are two major types of red light violations:

• 1) The red light violation where a driver continues a left turn or goes straight through as the last car in a line as the light is going red.
• 2) The red light violation where a driver is not part of a line but speeds up to beat the light or maybe even deliberately runs it.

In the first case, because the transiting line is solid and the last car is part of the line, drivers coming from another direction are not too likely to enter the intersection until it is clear even if the light is green.  However, in the second case, drivers coming from another direction have no visual cue and assume that a green light means it is safe to proceed.  Thus, it would be entirely possible to see a dramatic drop in violations without a corresponding increase in safety.  Maybe citation rates are not strategic-but we need to go further to find out.

There is also the possibility that red light cameras even increase the likelihood of some types of crashes while decreasing the likelihood of others.  And indeed, a fairly recent federal study: (Safety Evaluation of Red Light Cameras) suggests that is exactly what happens:  when red light cameras are installed, the incidence of 90 degree (t-bone) crashes goes down while the incidence of rear-enders goes up.  It is easy to see why this might be the case.  But even the number of accidents might not be a primary strategic measure.  A better measure in this case would probably be the total cost of accidents (injuries, property loss, and dollars).  The federal study actually concludes that there is a small decrease in overall costs of accidents as a result of red light cameras.  In other words, to some extent, red light cameras make roads (intersections) a bit safer.  In that regard, measuring the total cost of accidents instead of number of violations seems like a decent strategic measure if improvement in road safety is the goal.

So, if red light cameras provide a modest improvement in safety when measured by the somewhat reduced cost of accidents, does that mean they make sense strategically?  They might or they might not.

To further examine the intersection of strategy and strategic measurement, ask yourself this question: why is the red light there in the first place?  The answer is twofold:

• 1) Traffic lights improve traffic flow (Road Efficiency)
• 2) Traffic lights decrease the risk (cost) of going through an intersection. (Road Safety)

However, what if red light cameras actually impaired traffic flow because people were stopping too soon in order to avoid a camera-caught violation?  If this were the case, we might conclude that the real overall cost was actually higher with the cameras.  If we were to measure the value of people’s time, perhaps the passage times for emergency vehicles, and the increased consumption of fuel generated by longer trip times and more stop and go, both the road efficiency and road safety objectives might be impeded, rather than promoted by red light cameras.  Unfortunately, the federal study did not evaluate this aspect of the strategic question.

So if the strategic contribution of red light cameras can be questioned, then one might also question the overall strategic objective.  Remember this Future Picture:

The city has said repeatedly that the ultimate goal of the cameras is to highlight a problem in Montgomery and change driving habits in order to make the roads here safer.

What if the city’s real strategic objectives for road traffic read as follows?

In Montgomery, vehicles move through the city as quickly as possible at the lowest cost in time, fuel, and accidents.

Now, we might discover that intersections were poor solutions that should be avoided when feasible.  If there was no good alternative to an intersection, we might explore intersections where traffic was self controlling such as through roundabouts or four-way yield signs.  Indeed, there are a number of locales that have reduced or eliminated traffic lights and signs and have found accidents to decrease while efficiency has increased: (European Cities Do Away With Traffic Signs) In other words, the traffic light is not necessarily a strategic part of road safety or efficiency.

Sound strategic measurement depends on sound strategies-a sound Future Picture.  Are we sure that we are talking about ends rather than means?  Once we have decided that we really have a desirable end (something strategic) we need to decide what would measure realization of that end or progress toward it.  Much farther down the pike (mild pun intended) we can legitimately begin looking for means (tactics) to get there.  But even here, we must ensure our measurements are strategic and not measures of the tactics we are employing.  Additionally, we must ensure that our tactical actions and measurements do not produce unwanted or unintended strategic consequences.  In the case of red light cameras, we find that they reduce some kinds of accidents while increasing others.  We may accept the increase, but we owe it to ourselves to think it through-and maybe even conclude that being less aggressive with the violation point would help to mitigate the camera induced accidents.

Unfortunately, the real strategic measure for those installing red light cameras may have nothing whatsoever to do with improving safety or efficiency.  Instead, the real strategic measure may be revenue for the operating entity.  That in turn ought to raise the strategic question about the purpose and measurement of the operating entity.

The Intersection of Strategy and Measurement is not easy and really doing it well may make your head hurt.  Better, however, to experience a short-lived headache than to live with the potentially fatal consequences of strategically deficient measures.

 

Tagged as: Red Light Camera, Strategic Measurement, Strategy