Lean management for traffic-police enforcement planning

Purpose ‐ The purpose of this paper is to study the traffic-police enforcement process and develop models to improve enforcement effectiveness given substantial budgetary and resource constraints. Design/methodology/approach ‐ The formulation crosses the concepts of lean manufacturing and linear programming. Traffic police officers, automated machines and the back-office are modeled in a similar manner to that of a manufacturing plant, working together to achieve ticket production as a function of quantity and quality, based on a preferential ranking of offence types. Findings ‐ Using data from the Israeli traffic police over a six-year period, the case study shows that given available resources, it is possible to retain ticket quantity whilst significantly improving ticket quality as defined in the road safety literature. The case study shows a 24 per cent increase in quality ticket processing whilst taking into account the court summons constraint and maintaining throughput levels. This draws from changes in the method of ticket-production, production of warnings rather than tickets in certain cases and the application of new technologies. Research limitations/implications ‐ The results are limited by the current lack of data and require a cost-benefit analysis in order to further develop certain parameters. Practical implications ‐ The application of the approach improves the holistic planning of traffic enforcement activities as well as providing specific details, such as the number and distribution of ticket production. Originality/value ‐ This research merges three disciplines; operations research, road safety and operations management, generating a methodology for the planning and control of traffic police ticket issuance, which has not been analyzed in the literature to date.