In order to receive continued funding for the Supervised School Crossings program, all Victorian Councils are required to provide statistical information to VicRoads annually outlining the number of primary school students, secondary school students, and vehicles travelling through a school crossing while it is operating.

Historically, this has required a staff member to sit at the crossing counting cars and pedestrians for one to two days for 1.5 hours per day. These counts have never taken into account wider community use of the facility, only student and vehicle numbers.

The School Crossings team is trialling a new way to collate data using object detection sensors. These sensors may look like a camera but they do not record or transmit video or images. The software within the sensor is able to determine the approximate age of the person using the school crossing and converts that information to a number.

The camera technology will be in place at individual sites for 48 hours and will collate data during this time period to determine the number of primary school students, secondary school students, and other pedestrians that are crossing the road at that point. It will also calculate the number of vehicles travelling through the crossing.

Having concluded the trial period in May 2023, Council reviewed the data from the school crossing pilot. City of Casey have come to the decision to not continue the use of smart sensor technology for the application of school crossing counts.

The level of accuracy required by VicRoads in order to provide funding is not achievable with the current limitations of smart sensor technology.

Council has explored other potential solutions including the use of multiple sensors and using a hybrid approach where smart sensors are used for sites where it is particularly well suited due to the geography of the specific location. These options are both currently not viable and Council will not be proceeding with them at this point in time.