City Council
Report
City Council Meeting: September 24, 2024
Agenda Item: 5.A
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To: Mayor and City Council
From: Anuj Gupta, Director of Transportation, Department of Transportation, Finance & Administrative Services
Subject: Award Contract to Hayden Al, Inc. for Automated Bus Lane Enforcement Services
Recommended Action
Staff recommends that the City Council:
1. Adopt a finding of Categorical Exemption pursuant to Section 15321 (Enforcement Actions by Regulatory Agencies) of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) Guidelines.
2. Award a contract for automated bus lane enforcement services for the Department of Transportation to Hayden AI, Inc. pursuant to the exception to the competitive bidding process in Section 2.24.250 (c) of the Santa Monica Municipal Code.
3. Authorize the City Manager to negotiate and execute an agreement with Hayden AI, Inc. for automated bus lane enforcement services for the Department of Transportation. This recommended award is made as an exception to the competitive bidding process pursuant to Section 2.24.250 (c) and is for a total amount not to exceed $1,508,904 over five years, with future year funding contingent on Council budget approval.
Summary
Big Blue Bus (BBB), a division of the Santa Monica Department of Transportation (DOT), operates 194 transit buses across 69 square miles of greater Los Angeles providing more than 800,000 rides each month. As part of its commitment to providing customers with safe, reliable, innovative, accessible, and sustainable connections to economic opportunity, BBB conducted a 45-day proof-of-concept pilot in July 2023 to test the effectiveness of an automated bus lane monitoring and enforcement system.
The BBB pilot data and similar deployments in other cities confirmed that automated 2 of 7
bus lane enforcement (ABLE) could potentially improve BBB system performance by shortening travel times, improving ridership, and supporting system safety by keeping bus-only lanes and bus stops and zones clear of illegally parked vehicles. To this end, DOT submitted a project to implement ABLE technology in the FY2024-2026 Capital Improvement Program (CIP) budget that the City Council approved in June 2024. Staff recommends proceeding with implementation of ABLE by awarding a contract to Hayden AI, Inc. for ABLE services on 10 BBB buses.
Discussion
California’s Assembly Bill (AB) 917, which went into effect on January 1, 2022, allows public transit operators across the state to install automated forward-facing cameras on transit vehicles to enforce parking violations in bus lanes and designated transit stops.
According to UCLA Researchers, deploying transit-only lanes can improve travel times during peak congestion periods by 20-28%. Other research from the Victoria Transport Policy Institute in Canada shows that shortening travel times by as little as 5-15% can increase ridership by 2-9%.
AB 917 extended authorization granted previously to the City and County of San Francisco to “any public transit operator in the state until January 1, 2027” to “enforce parking violations in specified transit-only traffic lanes through the use of video imaging and to install automated forward-facing parking control devices on City-owned public transit vehicles for the purpose of video imaging parking violations occurring in transitonly traffic lanes.”1 From May 15, 2023, through June 30, 2023, as described in an Information Item published on September 20, 2023 (included here as Attachment A), DOT staff conducted a pilot of an automated bus lane monitoring system as a proof-of-concept and to identify the volume of parking violations occurring in bus-only lanes and bus stop zones in our service area.
Two BBB buses were equipped with automated, AI-powered camera systems that detected vehicles parked in designated no-parking zones. The onboard equipment included a forward-facing context camera and a license plate reading (LPR) camera 1 California Vehicle Code, https://legiscan.com/CA/text/AB917/2021 3 of 7
behind the front windshield of the bus along with a computing box in the bus’s electrical cabinet and an antenna on the roof of the bus.
Figure 1 - Mobile, AI-based computing system (left) and cameras installed on pilot buses (right) For 45 days at no cost, the vendor, Hayden AI, provided access to their cloud-based portal that generated data analytics on near real-time camera activity and key performance indicators, enabling BBB to gather relevant information to understand bus lane and bus stop violations and usage trends.
The two pilot buses operated on Route 3 and Rapid 3, BBB’s service to LAX, focusing on violations of the Lincoln Blvd. peak-hour bus-only lanes in Santa Monica. Sample evidence packages of violations were shared with the Santa Monica Police Department’s (SMPD) Traffic Services Division. In consideration of data retention and security, staff confirmed that AI cameras capture only potential violation images, and license plate numbers are only captured if the AI camera flags a potential violation. If a violation is suspected, a secure, encrypted evidence package is created. Since the purpose of this pilot was to assess the technology and gather data, any evidence packages created during the 45-day pilot were for information only and subsequently deleted.
The pilot found a total of 606 bus-only lane and bus stop violation incidents, of which 335 incidents occurred in the Lincoln Blvd. peak-hour bus-only lanes in Santa Monica, with the remainder occurring in bus stop zones. Violation hotspots in the Lincoln Blvd. bus-only lanes and at bus stops along Route 3 are shown below in Figures 2 and 3, respectively.
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Figure 2 - Heat map of all events captured in bus-only lane 5/15/23 through 6/30/23 Figure 3 - Heat map of all events in bus stop zones during pilot 5 of 7
Other significant pilot findings:
• Roughly 80 percent of bus-only lane violations occurred during the southbound (afternoon) lane restriction period.
• During the pilot, significantly more violation incidents occurred on Fridays (160) and Thursdays (133) than on other days of the week.
• The two pilot buses recorded an average of 7.7 violations per bus per day over the 45-day pilot period.
All video data collected during the pilot was only for the purpose of assessing the value of the technology, kept confidential, and erased within 15 days of the conclusion of the pilot in accordance with AB 917.
Staff concluded that given the successful proof of concept and the significant potential for improving BBB system performance and reducing safety hazards, a competitive procurement of ABLE technology to be installed on a portion of the BBB fleet was warranted. While reviewing procurement options for ABLE technology, staff learned that in October 2023, after conducting a competitive procurement, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) had awarded a contract to Hayden AI, Inc., for automated bus lane enforcement technology. After confirming that LA Metro’s procurement met the City of Santa Monica’s requirements for an exception to competitive bid award per Section 2.24.250 (c), “competitive procedures were followed by a governmental agency, federal, state, county, city, joint powers agency, special district, or cooperative purchasing agency and the goods or services are supplied to the City at the same or better price,” staff recommends that the Council approve the award of a five-year contract to Hayden AI, Inc. for a total amount not to exceed $1,508,904, to provide the hardware and software for and maintain the ABLE technology on ten BBB buses.
Administrative citation processing services will be provided by Trellint (formerly Conduent), with which the City, through DOT’s Parking Operations Division, already has a contract for such services. A $75,000 one-time fee to integrate the Hayden AI system with the Trellint citation processing system will be included in the Hayden AI contract budget. Review and approval of packages generated by the system would be conducted by a Traffic Services Officer (TSO) in the SMPD’s Parking Enforcement Unit. 6 of 7
Based on the information compiled in the pilot period, staff anticipates sufficient new citation revenue will be generated through the ABLE program within approximately one year of launch to cover the cost of the 0.5 FTE TSO included in the FY 2024-25 Adopted Budget. Until then, DOT has committed to reimburse the General Fund for the
0.5 FTE TSO.
Vendor Selection
Exception to Competitive Bidding
Staff recommends Hayden AI to furnish and deliver automated bus lane enforcement services as an exception to competitive bidding per Muni Code 2.24.250 (c). In 2023, LA Metro awarded a contract for automated bus lane enforcement to Hayden AI after a competitive procurement process, and the bid validity period for that procurement, which ended on 8/24/23, was extended on behalf of the City of Santa Monica. The services Hayden AI will provide to the Santa Monica DOT are being offered at the same or better price than that offered to LA Metro for the same services and under the same favorable terms and conditions.
c. competitive procedures were followed by a governmental agency, federal, state, county, city, joint powers agency, special district, or cooperative purchasing agency and the goods or services are supplied to the City at the same or better price.
Environmental Review
This project is categorically exempt from CEQA pursuant to Section 15321 of the CEQA Guidelines. Section 15321 exempts project from CEQA that are actions by regulatory agencies to enforce a law or general rule administered or adopted by the regulatory agency. The project would award a contract to Hayden AI for automated bus lane enforcement on 10 BBB buses. As part of this contract, equipment would be mounted on existing Big Blue Bus vehicles during their regular service for the purposes of enforcing bus lane violations. Furthermore, none of the exceptions to Categorial Exemptions set forth in the CEQA Guidelines, Section 15300.2 apply to this project.
Financial Impacts and Budget Actions
Staff seeks authority to approve funding from the Big Blue Bus Fund to award a contract with Hayden AI, Inc., for automated bus lane enforcement (ABLE) technology services.
Contract Request
FY 2024-25 Request Amount Future Years’
Amount CIP Account # Total Contract Amount
$260,155 $1,248,749 C6009110.689000 $1,508,904
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The citation revenues associated with the ABLE Program will be deposited in the General Fund. Currently, citation revenue is deposited to account 011800001.412010.
Upon approval of the contract award, a new revenue account will be created specifically for ABLE citation revenue. The timing and amount of the revenues to be generated are indeterminate at this time. The department will track and monitor the revenues. Any budget adjustments would be incorporated in a future budget, as needed.
Prepared By: Barbara Andres, Customer Experience and Innovation Administrator
Approved Forwarded to Council
Attachments:
A. 2023-09 Information Item on DoT Technology Pilots_Completed and New B. Hayden AI. OAKS INITIATIVE FORM
C. Hayden AI. Levine Act Disclosure Form
D. Written Comments