Muskegon Police utilize AI tool to help track speeding

By Kayla Tucker
mlive.com

MUSKEGON, Mich. — A new software powered by data-collecting artificial intelligence is giving Muskegon police more insight on speeding within the city.

AI software Urban SDK collects traffic data to give police a better insight into where drivers are speeding, where accidents are happening and where traffic may be congested.

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The city of Muskegon has signed on for a three-year contract with Urban SDK for an annual fee of $26,742. The police department has been using the tool for five months now.

The software pulls data from vehicles 2007 and newer, as well as Michigan Department of Transportation traffic data, translating it into general estimates of vehicle speeds by measuring travel time and distance along road segments within the city.

Public Safety Director Tim Kozal said the program has been a “wonderful” assist to the job, in both verifying speeding complaints and targeting specific times and locations to deploy officers where speeding is occurring.

The program does not read license plates or track cell phone data, Kozal said, and does not provide any personal driver data to the department.

Instead, the program may show that a segment of drivers are speeding during a specific four-hour time window.

An officer can be directed to monitor traffic during that specific time window at a location in the city, “instead of throwing darts at the wall and trying to figure out what time I need to have an officer out there,” said Lt. Casey Bringedahl , who oversees the AI tool within the department.

It also allows officers to look proactively at seasonal traffic trends.

The data does not differentiate between vehicle types like cars, semi-trucks and motorcycles.

“This is merely a guide,” Bringedahl said. “It’s not the be all, end all. I can’t say that at 8 p.m. on a Saturday I had a vehicle going through the intersection at 96 miles an hour,…

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