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Indianapolis DPW highlights video detection, ATMS and near-miss studies to improve safety
Summary
Indianapolis DPW engineer Tucker Born told an IMPO audience the city is shifting from pavement loops to video-based detection, rolling out ATMS to 160 signals and running near-miss studies to retime signals and target hotspots. Born said the cameras provide counts across users but can degrade in bad weather.
Danielle Fry, engagement specialist for the IMPO, opened the session and introduced panelist Tucker Born, who described how Indianapolis is upgrading intersection detection.
"Traditionally, we have used loop-based detection...They're just little metal inductive loops embedded into the pavement...video detection really has, come a long ways," Born said, explaining that video processors classify users and provide intersection-wide volume counts. He noted the edge processors are local and do not stream high-resolution CCTV imagery outward.
Born said the city has deployed cameras that produce hourly volumes and classification data and can feed near-real-time dashboards. He cited an Indianapolis 500 weekend example with "17,000 vehicles" and "3,500 bikes" passing an intersection in a day. Born emphasized the practical engineering use: "Engineering...does give us some useful information on how we should program the signal," and showed examples where data suggested adding split time to reduce red-light-running peaks.
Born also described the city's ATMS rollout to roughly 160 signals, enabling remote scheduling, alerting for flashing signals and event timing plans, which he called a "huge time saver." On near-miss studies, he said cameras or lidar can run multi-hour analyses that estimate time-to-collision and classify risk factors at conflict points, helping prioritize retiming or other countermeasures.
The presentation acknowledged limits: video detection can struggle in adverse weather and is not a substitute for field observation. Born said the technology is a tool to identify hotspots and guide engineering fixes rather than a standalone enforcement mechanism.
