Spectrum Traffic Data Inc. (Spectrum) is a private company that collects street traffic data. Our customers are professional traffic engineering or transportation planning consulting firms working under contract, private companies or government agencies. The data which Spectrum provides constitutes critical input for these studies. Such studies are typically undertaken by our customers in order to:
- improve traffic signal operations or roadway design;
- improve road user safety;
- identify and optimize appropriate traffic control measures;
- plan and design new transportation infrastructure;
- assess the impact of increased travel demand or changes in the use of road systems;
- assess site suitability; or
- respond to citizen queries or expressed concerns
Spectrum complies with the requirements of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Data Act (PIPEDA). This document set out the procedures that Spectrum follows to protect personal information that it may acquire through its conduct of street traffic data collection data collection. Should you have any questions or concerns kindly contact our
or call us directly at 1-888-670-3282 ext 101.
The majority of our data collection involves determining road user volume and classification. This data is derived by analysis of video taken using programmable recording units and wide-angle cameras mounted atop high-mast poles. The cameras are aimed at relevant section of the street. The derived data includes street traffic volumes by direction, time of movement, and road user classification (auto, truck, bus, bicycle and pedestrian).
For these studies, Spectrum does not intend, or endeavour, to collect any personal information. We do not collect, store, nor utilize licence plate numbers, MAC addresses nor other identifying information. We do not identify the gender, age, ethnicity or other personal attributes of any road user. In fact, the high-mast mounted wide-angle cameras record low resolution video that cannot be used by Spectrum for purposes of optical character or facial recognition or obtaining any personal information.
The video is viewed by our staff, or our contracted service providers, only for analytic purposes to obtain the required data, provide quality assurance, and for training or demonstration purposes.
The data derived from our analysis of the video is provided in tabular numeric form to our customers in a variety of digital formats such as PDF, XLS, CSV and the like. Our customers may view and/or download the data and/or video and be used for the purposes of the study. Spectrum, or our customers, may also provide the data and/or video to the local municipality responsible for the traffic operation of the subject roadway.
We store the video on our secure servers for a period of two-years after which time the video is deleted unless our customers request a longer period of storage and retrieval.
Some of Spectrum's data collection involves the determination of vehicular traffic flow patterns through a defined study area. The purpose is to identify where the vehicle enters the study area, the route travelled through the study area and the point of departure from the study area. For this purpose, we use a sophisticated camera with on board optical character recognition capability to read and record the license plates of vehicles on selected segments of the road network. This camera is mounted at approximately eye level and aimed at the traffic flow. The camera seeks and photographs each passing vehicle license plate. The image of the license plate is read by software onboard the camera. Spectrum quality assurance staff review the images and the camera produced character strings to verify, and where necessary, correct the data. When the license plate data has been verified, the character strings representing the license plate numbers are used to create a new anonymous data file by assigning a non-identifying number in place of each license plate number. The resulting anonymous data file is then transmitted to our customers for their analytic purposes. Once the anonymous data file has been accepted by our customers, the original images and the file of corresponding license plate readings are forthwith permanently deleted from our files.
Our data collection equipment is deployed with the expressed permission of the property owner, municipality or agency on whose property, or right-of-way, it is placed. The data recording is typically programmed to occur only during relevant traffic periods over a specified time of one to three days. The recording equipment is typically deployed at the site sometime between 8pm in the evening and 5am in the morning within 12 hours prior to the programmed start of video recording and removed within 12 hours following the completion of recording.
Should Spectrum be directed by a judicial order to transfer video in our possession, we would make best efforts to comply with such an order.
Other than as mentioned above, we do not share the data or the video with any other party.
