Columbus Ohio Cameras Hit $1M in Revenue

Columbus’ revenue from red-light cameras topped $1 million for the first time last year, and it was wasn’t only expanded monitoring that fueled the increase. More people also ran lights at intersections where cameras have been in place for four years or longer, suggesting that drivers are letting down their guard in places where automated enforcement is long-established.

In Columbus, the 12 cameras installed last year caught 9,700 red-light runners. But tickets also increased by almost 2,000 overall — or 11 percent — at intersections monitored by cameras since 2006 or 2007. It’s the first yearly increase since the entire set of cameras have been in place.

The city collected nearly $1.1 million last year from its share of red-light runners’ $95 tickets at all 30 intersections. That’s a 77 percent increase in revenue from 2010, attributable to both the extra cameras and the city’s receipt of a larger share of each ticket under its new contract with camera-maker Redflex Traffic Systems.