Santa Monica rolls out program using AI-powered cameras to catch bike lane violators

After months of testing a new program aimed at catching bike lane violators, the city of Santa Monica is now issuing tickets with the help of an artificial intelligence-powered camera system. 

The Automated Bike Lane Enforcement Program uses the city's parking enforcement vehicles, which are now using advanced technology to spot cars and trucks illegally parked in the green bike lanes across the city. Trevor Thomas, who leads the program, says it's all about efficiency.

"There's the issue of bandwidth, right? It takes time for a human to get out of their car to process the citation," Thomas said. "This basically extends the bandwidth over existing officers."

Seven of the enforcement vehicles are now equipped with AI-powered cameras that are on the lookout for parking violations. The camera scans for vehicles that are blocking bike lanes and captures photos and videos to mark the time and place of the violation before sending them to a human officer. 

"It then gets reviewed by a human traffic safety enforcement officer, who then ensures that it's a genuine violation and then it's processed for a citation, for a ticket," Thomas said. 

The violation costs $93, and Thomas said they're hopeful it makes people think twice about where they're parking. He says that the program's main goal is to increase safety as part of the city's broader Vision Zero initiative aimed at eliminating deadly and severe injury crashes by year's end. 

City officials say that blocked bike lanes force cyclists and pedestrians on scooters or skateboards into traffic lanes, which then increases the likelihood of a serious collision. 

During a six-week pilot in 2024, Santa Monica says that two parking enforcement vehicles equipped with the technology generated nearly 1,700 violations. Since restarting the program in May, they said they're issuing an average of 150 violations a month.

"That's the city's real, overarching goal here, just to make the streets safe and comfortable for all users," Thomas said.