At 21:30 on 10 August 2018, correspondents from The Nanjinger spotted another CCTV street screen displaying people jaywalking at an intersection along Lushan Lu in the Olympia area of Nanjing. A similar street screen was spotted at the Hongwu Lu intersection in the city’s central business district of Xinjiekou in September last year.
Large enough to be seen from one block away, such screens in Nanjing and other cities throughout China display people caught by CCTV cameras disobeying traffic regulations. With such people finding themselves named, shamed and displayed on such large screens since 2017, The Nanjinger wondered if the method is working?
In some parts of the country, an appearance on “Shame TV” also results in a fine, sent to the offender via instant messaging platforms such as WeChat and Weibo. While some reports online suggest the CCTV cameras are using facial recognition software to do this, it has not yet been confirmed that this is the case for the cameras in Nanjing.
British newspaper The Independent points out, “Shenzhen began using AI-enabled cameras in April last year and within 10 months had displayed 13,939 jaywalking offenders in one LED screen at a busy junction in Futian district, according to police”.
A story on people.com.cn states the screens have been in use in Nanjing since 1 August, 2017. Outward appearances however, would have it yet to yield much of an effect on the city’s downtown, as people continue to jaywalk, run red lights and cut corners every day.
Electric bike riders and pedestrians are still mostly those disobeying traffic regulations in Nanjing, with the percentage of which remaining the same. In other attempts at controlling traffic chaos, Nanjing’s traffic police, who can be seen every afternoon on many of the city’s busiest intersections, such as the junction of Guangzhou Lu and Ninghai Lu, are using speed cameras to pull people over and issues fines.
In was reported by the Independent that, “The company [Intellifusion] which provides the [facial recognition] technology [spoke] with mobile phone carriers and social media firms about developing a system that notifies jaywalkers through instant messages when they are caught by the cameras, crossing the road outside of a marked pedestrian crosswalk at an intersection”. It is unclear whether people caught in Nanjing will be fined or if this is the only punishment.
Li Tao, reporting for South China Morning Post (SCMP), spoke with Wang Jun, Intellifusion company director of marketing solutions in March of this year, saying, “Jaywalking has always been an issue in China and can hardly be resolved just by imposing fines or taking photos of the offenders. But a combination of technology and psychology … can greatly reduce instances of jaywalking and will prevent repeat offences”.
In addition to naming, shaming and fining offenders, Wang told SCMP, “The system will also be able to register how many times a pedestrian has violated traffic rules in the city and once this number reaches a certain level, it will affect the offender’s social credit score which in turn may limit their ability to take out loans from banks”.
Wang went on to say the measures have effectively reduced the number of repeat offenders for Shenzhen. Indeed, more cars in Nanjing are stopping to wait at zebra crossings where pedestrian traffic lights are not installed, while many pedestrians are happy to wait out the light at crossings. However, more time is needed to really tell if this method of calming down Nanjing’s streets will be effective in the long run.
