CITY COUNCIL AWAITING REPORT FROM STAFF 

The City has completed its public meetings regarding the Pilot Off-Premise Digital Sign Ordinance.  From the input below, you will see that the majority of those attending do NOT want any more digital off-premise signs.  And, 91% of the approximately 130 additional responders to the City are of the same opinion.

What will happen next?  The City staff is to report to the City Council by September or October.   Representatives from Scenic San Antonio, the San Antonio Conservation Society, the American Institute of Architects, San Antonio Chapter, and neighborhood associations have been visiting with members of our City Council.  There is wide-spread support among City Council for a ban on any additional billboard construction, including revision of existing billboards to digital.  We will let you know when the staff reports to the City Council and encourage you to attend that session to voice your opinion about billboards.

 

Below are two pieces of information for you.  The first is a comparison between the City’s existing Pilot Program and the recommendations from the independent review.  In a nutshell, it will show you where the Pilot Program now falls short.  The second is a summary of the independent review.

 

COMPARISON

 

1.  Minimum message display duration:
 
City:  10-second intervals

Wachtel:  Formula:  Sight distance to the DBB (ft) / Speed Limit (ft/sec) = Minimum display duration (sec.)

We have used the formula for 9 DBB’s to date.  All but one exceeded this formula.

2.  Interval between successive displays

City: Zero

Wachtel:  Zero

3.  Visual effects between successive displays

City: None

Wachtel:  None

4.  Message sequencing

City:  No prohibition.  Caution:  Technologies exist and are being developed for messaging sequence.  Example:  Coors beer ad in Tampa, Florida.

Wachtel:  Should be prohibited

5.  Amount of information displayed

City:  No restrictions.  Caution:  Technologies exist and are being developed to connect directly with the driver.  The issue:  are such distractions safe?  Examples:  1) Trying to copy down phone numbers while driving.  2)  Digitals can send information to a driver’s cell phone as he passes the billboard, via blue tooth connections.  3)  Digital can be programmed to display a message to a particular driver with an active cell phone.

 Wachtel:  Depends upon sight distance, speed limits, and driver task demands.  Good source for guidance:  The Netherlands.  Note:  use of phone or email contacts not a good idea, because drivers may slow to read and copy.

Note:  AMBER alerts, FBI warnings, etc. offered as a “public service” by billboard companies not a good idea, since they are information-heavy.

6.  Information presentation

City: Only restriction is on spacing, no restrictions on placing. Most in the city are near intersections or exits and almost all are by TxDot Overhead traffic information signs, like Broadway Street exit next with an arrow.

Wachtel:  Specific upper limits should differ depending upon sight distance, speed limits, and driver task demands imposed by the design and operation of the roadway.

Inference:  Digital billboards should be prohibited in places where there are high cognitive demands on drivers, such as interchanges, intersections, drop or merge lanes, etc., nor should they compete with official traffic control devices (such as signs, signals, and markings).

7.  Brightness, luminance and illuminance

City:   The term “luminance” is only used regarding on-premise signs.  In the Pilot Program, “brilliance, light intensity or just intensity” are used.

The “Dark Skies” Ordinance allows a billboard to be .3 fc above ambient lighting.  So as ambient lighting goes up, billboards are allowed to increase their intensity or brilliance.

Wachtel:  Billboard industry uses illuminance as their measurement technique, whereas other organizations use luminance.  For luminance measurements, the report made several recommendations in Section 6.

Another problem with the billboard industry approach is that they recommend that DBBs be controlled such that “their maximum display output is capped at a fixed amount (0.3 fc) greater than the surrounding environment.  This specification may be inappropriate because illumination levels do not increase in linear fashion.  Thus, a DBB with an output that is 0.3 fc higher than the ambient illumination in an urban environment (where the majority of DBBs are likely to be located) will appear to the driver to be much brighter than official TCDs and other traffic, whereas a DBB with an output that is 0.3 fc higher than that of a suburban or rural environment may not appear to be so extremely bright, and may be less likely to overwhelm important safety targets and signals of lower luminance.”  [see pp 156, 157 of Wachtel report]

Further, DBB luminance controls are necessary during daytime foggy conditions.  If onboard sensors cannot detect daylight fog and adjust the sign’s output accordingly, cities should develop their own output limitations for these conditions.

8.  Display luminance in the event of failure

City:  DBBs shall contain a default mechanism that will freeze the sign in one position if a malfunction occurs.

Wachtel:  The display should default to an output level no higher than the maximum acceptable level, or default to an “off” position.

9.  Longitudinal spacing between digital billboards

City:   A DBB may not be within 2,000 feet of another DBB facing the same traveled way.

Wachtel:  An approaching driver should not be faced with 2 or more digital billboards – on both sides of the road.

10.  Digital billboard placement with relation to traffic control devices and driver decision and action points

City:  No restriction

Wachtel:  Good guidance provided by Queensland, Australia.

11.  Annual operating permits

City:  Permits have no expiration date, which leads to “grandfathering” of existing billboards.  The ordinances in Chapter 10 and 28 have various restrictions afforded to “grandfathered” billboards.

Wachtel:  Permits should be renewed annually, to allow government to apply new information regarding placement or operation.

This document can be found on the Scenic America website:

Safety Impacts of the Emerging Digital Display Technology for Outdoor Advertising Signs               FINAL REPORT         April 2009

Submitted Under NCHRP Project 20-7 (256)

Prepared by Jerry Wachtel, CPE, President, The Veridian Group, Inc.

Berkeley, California

 

Comparison prepared by Scenic San Antonio

Contact:   June Kachtik, Chair             junekac@aol.com

Note:  On 5/29/09 I asked Rod Sanchez, Director of the Planning and Development Services Department, to review my summary for accuracy, however he has not responded.

 

 

SUMMARY OF INDEPENDENT REVIEW

Objective 

To develop guidance for State Departments of Transportation & other highway operating agencies with respect to the safety implications of digital display technology being increasingly used for outdoor advertising signs.

 

Methodology

Conduct critical literature review of existing guidelines and research results.

 

ConclusionsThose who think that their job is to do what they can to enhance safety for the traveling public based upon the best available information, now have access to a strong and growing body of evidence, including evidence from industry supported research, that roadside digital advertising attract drivers’ eyes away from the road for extended, demonstrably unsafe periods of time.There are strong theoretical underpinnings in the psychology of cognition, perception, psychophysics, and human factors, to suggest why stimuli such as roadside digital billboards can capture and hold a person’s attention, even at the expense of primary task performance.It is difficult to perform a study in this domain that does not suffer, at some level, from weaknesses that may affect the strength or generalizability of its findings.The recommendations from research, and the existence of guidelines or regulations that stem from that research, are quite consistent, although not fully so, both in the areas in which digital billboards are suggested for control (e.g. brightness, message duration and message change interval, and billboard location with regard to official traffic control devices, roadway geometry, and vehicle maneuver requirements at interchanges, lane drops, merges and diverges), and with regard to the specific constraints that should be placed on such signs’ placement and operation.

 

Of NoteThere are several recent extensions of digital advertising technologies that may add further to the distraction potential of these displays.  Technologies run ahead of studies.On-premise signage needs controls which account for new technologies.Signage on the right-of-way is governed by the Federal Highway Administration, which has determined that such signage should “promote the safe and efficient utilization of the highways”.  Utilizing public-private partnerships for private advertising is inappropriate (no matter how tempting the additional revenue might be to the public partner).While there are many complex variables to consider, as well as constant new technologies to study, the growing body of research does demonstrate that digital billboards can be distracting.  Rather than allow the billboard industry to insist on demonstrable proof that digital billboards cause crashes, the research does justify setting guidelines at this time.  Page 182:  “If crash causation is the standard to be met, we may never get there.  This is not necessarily because digital billboards are not a causative factor in crashes; it is, as most researchers believe, more likely that our research methods are not sufficiently sensitive to identify this linkage.  This, in turn, is a result of the substantial difficulties involved in conducting post-hoc statistical analyses of crash summaries for an issue that is so profoundly complex.  When we know that more than 80% of accidents are not reported to the police, that drivers would not likely admit crashing as a result of such distraction, and that research has clearly shown that our attention as well as our eyes are reflexively drawn to objects such as digital billboards even when we have no interest in them and have a more important task to perform, and that we may well be unaware of attending to them at all, it is little wonder that such epidemiological studies may simply be incapable of adding to our knowledge of the traffic safety impacts of digital billboards.”

Then again, we have rarely required proof of actual crash causation prior to setting speed limits, restricting in-vehicle mobile phone use, or even developing current billboard operational and location restrictions.  The argument against the control of digital billboards because studies to date have not proven a cause and effect relationship between digital billboards and crashes is simply spurious.  It would seem sufficient to initiate action based on a level of consistency achieved in research.  And such consistency is now being achieved. …. Those governmental agencies and toll road operators, faced with the need to make decisions (about permit applications) now have, in our opinion a sufficient and sound basis for doing so.

 

Recommendations for Guidelines

See Section 6, pages 145 – 160 for full discussion.Minimum message display duration (message on-time)

Sight distance to the digital billboard (ft.) / Speed Limit (ft./sec.) = Minimum display duration (sec.)

Assuming a 60 mph speed limit, the current 8 second rotation allowed by City regulation now would not be considered safe!  This finding alone, should alarm the City Council which passed the pilot digital billboard ordinance in December 2007 over the opposition of many citizens and organizations who asked the City to wait until it had proof of safety.  It did not do so.  Now what?Interval between successive displays

Zero – such that an approaching driver cannot perceive any blanking of the display screenVisual effects between successive displays

NoneMessage sequencing

Should be prohibitedAmount of information displayed

Depends upon sight distance, speed limits, and driver task demands.  Good source for guidance:  The Netherlands.  Note:  use of phone or email contacts not a good idea, because drivers may slow to read and copy.

Note:  AMBER alerts, FBI warnings, etc. offered as a “public service” by billboard companies not a good idea, since they are information-heavy.Information presentation

Specific upper limits should differ depending upon sight distance, speed limits, and driver task demands imposed by the design and operation of the roadway.

Inference:  Digital billboards should be prohibited in places where there are high cognitive demands on drivers, such as interchanges, intersections, drop or merge lanes, etc., nor should they compete with official traffic control devices (such as signs, signals, and markings).Brightness, luminance and illuminance

Regulatory bodies and billboard companies seem to reach similar conclusions about the maximum luminance values that billboards should not exceed under defined conditions, but they do not agree on measurement methods, environmental descriptors, and means for ensuring that limits are not exceeded.Display luminance in the event of failure

The display should default to an output level no higher than the maximum acceptable level, or default to an “off” position.Longitudinal spacing between digital billboards

An approaching driver should not be faced with 2 or more digital billboards – on both sides of the road.Digital billboard placement with relation to traffic control devices and driver decision and action points

Good guidance provided by Queensland, Australia.Annual operating permits

Permits should be renewed annually, to allow government to apply new information regarding placement or operation.

 

Comment by June Kachtik, Chair, Scenic San Antonio

 

This Report does demonstrate that independent studies find digital billboards to be distractions to drivers – however, it cautions that prior studies have not been sophisticated enough to establish a causal relationship between digital billboards and driver accidents.  Those studies are to be done in 2010 – yet the City insists on modification of the Digital Pilot Program in 2009! 

 

In a city such as San Antonio, where tourism is its second industry and the military must have as little lighting as possible around Camp Bullis or it will leave, it does not make economic sense to downgrade our unique scenic environment.  In addition, the Report does not address aesthetic issues, which is one of the primary reasons that neighborhoods have opposed the construction of all new billboards when given a chance by the City to comment through a thorough public review process (scenic corridors).

 

If the City is not going to seriously consider the safety studies, your input to the City becomes even more important.  You will have to be the ones to convince City Council to adopt good public policy, i. e., to prohibit any additional off-premise digital billboards.  This new City Council is going to be a very different one from the prior council, and you have the opportunity to help them do the right thing. 

June Kachtik, Chair
Scenic San Antonio

Now is the time for citizens to protect the San Antonio they love. Contact your representative. Make Your Voices Heard NOW!