As urban populations increase, transit agencies must determine how to best manage traffic congestion within their cities. One clear sign of heightened congestion is a growing number of unauthorized vehicles occupying bus lanes. 

When private vehicles use designated lanes, agencies are forced to assess the impact the behavior has on city-wide congestion and public safety. 

Obstructed lanes slow buses down, leading to a domino effect of other concerns. Non-transit vehicles in a bus lane can also block ambulances or fire trucks from being able to get to an emergency situation. 

In response, transit agencies in the U.S. are introducing bus lane automation technology as a solution. This involves placing cameras and sensors on city buses or camera poles to monitor private and commercial vehicles in designated bus lanes. 

The technology notifies agency authorities of violations, with the end goal of changing driver behavior, reducing congestion, and improving public transit efficiency and safety. 

The Case for Bus Lane Automation 

Traffic congestion is a rising concern for many American commuters. 

The INRIX 2024 Global Traffic Scorecard reported the average U.S. driver lost 43 hours — more than one whole week of work — to traffic last year. 

With congestion back to pre-COVID levels in many regions, transit agencies are incentivized to improve service times by finding ways to clear slowdowns in the transportation infrastructure, in part by adding new bus lanes. 

Adding dedicated bus lanes can reduce travel time during rush hour by 20% to 25%, and adding automated camera enforcement can improve speeds by as much as 36% on enforced bus routes, saving riders time, and most importantly, helping people get to work and back home on time.

When new bus lanes are created, agencies typically notice increased ridership and emphasize police enforcement to prevent unauthorized obstructions. 

However, enforcement tends to dwindle over time due to challenges like budget limitations, human resource constraints, and authorization conflicts.

Insufficient bus lane enforcement also poses safety concerns. 

Without enforcement, transit agencies can’t ensure available curb space for emergency vehicles, collisions between buses and other vehicles become more likely and wheelchair passengers are put at risk. 

If a vehicle is obstructing the lane, the bus driver may be unable to lower the wheelchair ramp at the correct angle. This can prevent those passengers from boarding safely. 

For these reasons, the Washington D.C. Department of Transportation recommends using automated enforcement systems as a best practice for maintaining safety along bus lanes. 

Ultimately, bus transit improvement programs can only succeed when the lanes themselves are kept clear for authorized use only. For agencies focused on improving their bus routes and promoting public safety, adding bus lane automation is often a natural next step. 

Spotlight on Seattle

In November 2024, Seattle’s King County Metro (KCM) introduced a 60-day bus automation pilot program to assess the frequency of drivers occupying bus lanes. 

To do this, the agency mounted AI-powered cameras on buses servicing Seattle’s RapidRide E Line and Route 7. These are two of the city’s busiest routes, extending far north and south of downtown Seattle.

The pilot program aimed to reduce Seattle’s bus delays and collisions, save riders’ time and taxpayer money, and address the city’s booming traffic. 

In 2024, traffic congestion in the city increased by 9%. It currently ranks 10th in the U.S. for worst traffic congestion, with drivers losing 63 hours per year to delays.

Seattle’s pilot program didn’t ticket any drivers initially, the main goal was to collect data. 

Within its first two weeks, KCM found that 25% of its RapidRide E and 27% of its Route 7 trips faced delays, and the agency will work to continue improving these numbers throughout 2025. 

To prevent any errors, a human reviewed each pilot infraction to validate the lane violation, while an AI system in partnership with Hayden AI was trained on the route. Later this year, the agency will assess results to evaluate accuracy for the AI systems to determine roll out plans. 

Results From Across the Country

In June 2024, New York City’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) announced the agency had deployed Automated Camera Enforcement (ACE) on 623 buses. 

In the initial deployment, the agency discovered that only 9% of drivers committed a second bus lane violation after receiving a fine, demonstrating that almost all cited drivers changed driving behavior after their first citation. 

Since the implementation, average bus speeds have risen 5%, collisions decreased by nearly 20%, and one bus route along Manhattan’s 14th St. saw weekday ridership soar by 24% with the service improvements. 

All the buses on the 14 routes that are currently enabled with lane enforcement technology have now been updated with state-of-the-art artificial intelligence-based enforcement technology, allowing the agency to expand enforcement at bus stops and cite double-parked vehicles. 

In 2019, Los Angeles Metro and LADOT installed more than 40 miles of bus-only lanes. This alone was initially successful in increasing ridership, but they noticed declining value as drivers began veering into these lanes. 

Additionally, LA Metro introduced its ACE program to enhance safety and transportation reliability for its 700,000 riders in November 2024. 

Similarly, Oakland expanded its bus lane automation program just two months after its initial installation because of its effectiveness. 

Verra Mobility reported improved bus route arrival times for one client exceeding 3,000 hours in just one year, saving more than 130 days for its riders. These success examples are by no means exhaustive, but they offer a baseline for what’s possible for transit agencies across America. 

Best Practices for Deployment 

Often, the deployment of new bus violation technology can make significant changes in driver behavior. When drivers know they risk fines by using a bus lane, that knowledge can encourage them to drive a little further to find a legal parking spot. 

To help educate a community, it’s helpful to proactively address resident concerns. 

Commuters should be aware of bus lane rules, and enforced routes and corresponding fines should be made publicly available and easily accessible. Bus lanes should also be clearly marked for all drivers. 

It’s also helpful to explain the benefits of bus lane automation to local transit users. 

When they understand the impact the technology has on faster bus routes, reduced traffic congestion, and safety, they may become more open to its use. 

Automated enforcement is also more cost-effective than human enforcers, saving taxpayer money and allowing authorities to focus on more urgent civil matters. 

Transit agencies must also assign event review responsibilities to human officers until AI technology has enough data to understand how violations happen on a specific route. This is to prevent inaccurate citations during the training phase. 

As buses repeatedly complete their routes, machine learning algorithms will improve their accuracy until the AI can operate independently. 

Along with event review, automation providers typically handle everything surrounding the technology. This includes hardware and software installation, maintenance and updates, and data security management. 

Bus lane automation offers transit agencies a viable and effective way to change driver behavior and improve public safety. 

Cities such as Seattle, New York, Los Angeles, and Oakland are already tackling these issues by modernizing public transportation infrastructures and bus lane automation nicely complements these efforts. By taking advantage of automation technology, transit agencies can start to reduce congestion, save taxpayer dollars and transform bus lines for the better.

About the Author: Melba Rivera-Irizarry is VP, Strategic Accounts, at Verra Mobility