Intelligent Speed Assistance in Practice: Pilots, Plans, and Funding Pathways

Why ISA? Why Start with Public Fleets?

As communities across the country work to make meaningful progress on lowering speed limits, redesigning streets, and investing in tools like speed safety cameras, the “Safe Vehicles” pillar of the Safe System approach remains the least activated among proven speed management strategies. Local governments have a powerful, immediate opportunity to advance safer speeds through their fleet vehicles.This is a powerful opportunity to manage speeds for safety in your community.

Intelligent Speed Assistance (ISA) is proven, available, and deployable technology that has existed for decades. It comes in different forms – including passive warning systems and active speed-limiting systems. In this discussion, we focus specifically on active ISA, which prevents a vehicle from accelerating beyond a set speed threshold and aligns most directly with the Safe System approach as a preventative tool. The question is no longer whether ISA works, but how communities can quickly leverage and scale up this proven safety tool.

At our February 19th webinar, we focused on the nuts and bolts of using active ISA on public fleets. We were joined by Tina Roper, Chief Administrative Officer at the DC Child and Family Services Agency, and Michael Travars, President of LifeSafer, for a discussion about practical considerations, operational lessons, and what it takes to successfully pilot and scale ISA within a public agency. See the recording below and access the presenters’ slides here.

The webinar focuses primarily on public fleets – and that focus is intentional. Fleets offer control, accountability, and the ability to test and scale, allowing agencies to “start where you have authority.” Local governments already oversee vehicle procurement, telematics, safety policies, and liability exposure, making ISA a practical fit within existing systems and vehicles.

Webinar speakers emphasized that ISA is not primarily an enforcement tool but rather a strategy to benefit road safety, improving fleet performance, and risk management. This distinction is critical: conversations with Vision Zero stakeholders should center on shared goals – reducing liability, protecting employees, and reducing preventable crashes. And while fleets may only be one category that benefits from ISA, it is often most feasible and advantageous to start here.

What Active ISA Looks Like in Practice

Active ISA is an aftermarket vehicle safety technology that holds vehicles to safe speeds. Using GPS and digital speed limit data, ISA continuously compares the vehicle’s speed to the posted limit and actively prevents acceleration above that threshold. Importantly, ISA does not interfere with braking or limit a driver’s ability to respond to roadway conditions. Rather, it prevents the vehicle from accelerating beyond the safe speeds. This distinction was emphasized during the webinar to clarify that ISA is designed to manage speeding – not restrict necessary vehicle control.

ISA can be part of public fleets either by including the feature as part of new vehicle purchases or easily adding ISA as an aftermarket modification. ISA devices are surprisingly easy, quick, and affordable to be installed in existing fleet vehicles and integrated with the vehicle’s onboard systems. The installation can be phased in – department by department or vehicle type by vehicle type – making it manageable for jurisdictions of any size. Maintenance requirements are minimal and largely software-based, with regularly updated speed limit data and monitoring similar to other telematics systems. For fleet managers, this makes ISA a practical safety enhancement rather than a burdensome add-on. And piloting ISA in fleets offers the chance to test logistics, policy, and management before scaling up, as Washington, DC is successfully doing.

Real-World Results: DC’s Fleet Implementation

In the webinar, Tina Roper shared how the Washington, DC’s Child and Family Services Agency (CFSA) approached ISA after telematics data revealed frequent speeding across its 80-vehicle fleet. As she shared, social workers operate under time pressure – moving between court, home visits, and urgent appointments – and speed creep can happen almost unintentionally. When “the vehicle allows it,” even well-intentioned drivers can gradually exceed posted limits, especially while focused on demanding job responsibilities.

CFSA implemented ISA across nearly its entire fleet within approximately 2 weeks, pairing installation with staff education, FAQs, and ongoing communications. The results were impressive: after adding ISA to the vehicles, speeding incidents declined by 91% – from 47 in July 2024 to just 4 in July 2025. The experience reinforces a core Safe System insight: when the system removes the opportunity to speed, behavior changes quickly.

Roper acknowledged some operational issues, but all of which she described as easily manageable – including occasional connectivity issues when vehicles were in tunnels. These were all addressed through quick system adjustments by the vendors.

As discussed in our recent webinar, the Washington DC’s Department of Transportation is also advancing ISA with its own fleet strategy, and New York City has years of proven success ISA fleet pilots and broader fleet conversations – see the impressive results!

Another example, highlighted in an America Walks webinar, comes from Ventura County, CA, where telematics revealed serious speeding issues – including freeway speeds over 100 mph and 50-60 mph in 25 mph school zones – prompting an ISA pilot that resulted in zero speeding violations during the test period.

These and many other communities across the nation – and world (read about London’s successful implementation of ISA on public transit) show the growing interest in leveraging ISA’s safety benefits in relatively simple, quick, affordable ways.

Interested in implementing ISA in your fleet? Download this two-pager to help you make the case.

Funding Pathways for ISA

Funding is often one of the first questions that arises in conversations about active ISA implementation. During the webinar, Vision Zero Network’s Leah Shahum highlighted the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Safe Streets and Roads for All (SS4A) program as a particularly timely opportunity for communities considering fleet-based ISA pilots. SS4A’s planning category allows for demonstrations of safety tools such as ISA. In fact, New York City’s ISA pilot expansion was funded with SS4A in 2023.

Given that this is the fifth and final year of the SS4A grant program and that demonstration/planning grants are not only available but also easier to access than more competitive implementation-type grants, we encourage communities to consider ISA fleet pilots for this year’s SS4A call for projects. And, active ISA can (and should) be positioned as one component within a multi-pronged Safe System proposal. For example, testing ISA can be a strong “Safe Fleets” portion of a grant proposal, along with other pieces that fit well into other components, such as Safe Streets (piloting traffic calming devices), Safe Speeds (along with ISA, lower speed limits could be tested in school zones), and Safe People (piloting ISA for new drivers including teens).

Read more about SS4A and note that we anticipate this year’s call for projects to come out in the Spring with a deadline expected in May or June. These dates are not definite, so watch USDOT’s site for updates.

Of course federal grants are only one funding source; local, regional and state funds can also be accessed. ISA can also be integrated into existing fleet procurement and vehicle replacement cycles. When communities update their fleet policies – whether purchasing new vehicles or retrofitting existing ones – ISA can be included as a standard safety specification. As described below, the up-front costs can save communities money in the long run.

Cost, Risk, and ROI

ISA as a comparatively low cost, high-return safety intervention. During the webinar, LifeSafer’s Michael Travars estimated costs at about $1,000 per vehicle for the pilot period.

Agencies can evaluate ISA investments not simply as a hardware expense but rather as a risk mitigation tool. As agency leaders know, fleet vehicles involved in collisions – particularly those involving speeding – often carry heavy financial implications, including liability claims, legal costs, vehicle damage, staff injury, workers’ compensation, and reputational harm. From a return on investment (ROI) perspective, the DC example offers an encouraging lesson, as their 91% reduction in speeding incidents after adding ISA to fleet vehicles represents not just safer drivers and streets, but also lower costs.

A recent New York City DCAS study found that electric vehicles equipped with ISA achieved about 6% improved energy economy compared to similar vehicles without the technology, suggesting that ISA can deliver operational savings alongside safety benefits.

Data, Privacy, and Trust

Many public agencies already use telematics systems to track their fleet vehicles’ location, fuel efficiency, idling, and driving behavior. In DC’s case, it was telematics data that first revealed frequent speeding across the fleet and helped justify action. ISA did not introduce monitoring where none existed; rather, it shifted the approach from observing speeding after the fact to preventing it in real time. ISA used in fleets typically generates data related to speed compliance rather than constant driver surveillance.

Setting up smart policies and clearly communicating with the staff using the fleets are both central to ensuring buy-in. Agencies using ISA must be clear about what data they collect, who has access to it, and how it will be used. In DC’s rollout, educational materials and FAQs were shared to prepare staff and set clear expectations. The framing was important and deliberate: ISA is a preventive safety measure, not a disciplinary tool.

Importantly, driver acceptance is higher than some may think. Survey research shows that a majority of drivers support ISA – with 60–70% expressing support for systems that prevent speeding, particularly in high-risk settings like school zones, as shared by Jessica Cicchino of IIHS, as part of our previous webinar. Support increases further when ISA is framed as a crash-prevention tool rather than a punishment mechanism.

DC’s Roper noted that acceptance often grows once drivers experience ISA firsthand. Seeing how the system works – especially recognizing that it does not interfere with braking or necessary vehicle control – helps ease concerns. For a personal perspective, Vision Zero Network’s Tiffany Smith recently tested ISA and shared her experience in Streetsblog’s What It’s Really Like to Drive a Car with Intelligent Speed Assist.

Check out our two-pager about implementing ISA in fleets. And see common questions and responses below.

Common Questions about ISA

1. How accurate is active ISA? What if the ISA device reads the speed limit incorrectly?

ISA uses GPS positioning and digital speed limit maps, which are continuously updated. Like any map-based system, occasional discrepancies can occur (for example, in areas with recent limit changes or complex roadway segments). In practice, agencies address this in two ways:

• Vendors provide regular map updates and can quickly correct errors when identified.
• Pilots help identify location-specific inaccuracies early to make corrections.

In DC’s case, even issues such as connectivity interruptions in tunnels, were resolved quickly by the vendor making system adjustments. Accuracy concerns are real but manageable, and they tend to decrease over time as mapping data improves. Importantly, occasional inaccuracies do not negate the overall safety benefit of preventing routine speeding.

2. What staffing is required to run a municipal ISA pilot?

ISA pilots do not typically require new staff. Instead, they rely on coordination among existing roles, often including the following:

• Fleet manager or fleet operations lead (primary coordinator)
• IT/telematics support (integration and data oversight)
• Risk management or safety officer (policy alignment)
• Department leadership (internal messaging and buy-in)

For a small pilot, the work is generally front-loaded: planning meetings, installation coordination, staff communication, and FAQ development. Once deployed, ongoing oversight is similar to managing other telematics tools – reviewing reports periodically and addressing technical issues as needed. And, as noted above, installation takes about 30 minutes per vehicle.

3. Does ISA allow temporary acceleration for evasive maneuvers? How should agencies define override rules?

Yes – certain ISA configurations include an option for temporary override in a specific situation. ISA prevents acceleration above a programmed threshold but does not interfere with braking or steering. Agencies should define override policies clearly in advance. Key considerations include:

• Who is authorized to override?
• Under what circumstances?
• Is override logged and reviewed?

4. How can agencies evaluate ISA benefits in their fleets?

One of the benefits of piloting ISA in a fleet system is the relatively quick turnaround to see results when comparing pilot program vehicles against existing fleet vehicles, including:

Short-term metrics (first 3–6 months):

• Speed compliance rates
• Frequency of speeding
• Frequency of high-risk speeding (e.g., 10+ mph over limit, which poses the most dangers)
• Driver feedback and acceptance

Long-term metrics:

• Crash frequency and severity
• Collision-related costs
• Workers’ compensation claims
• Insurance and liability trends
• Culture shift in fleet driving behavior
• Fuel and electrical efficiency (and resulting cost savings)

The DC example highlighted a 91% reduction in speeding incidents in one year – a powerful indicator. Because crashes are relatively rare events, it may take time to detect measurable changes. However, sustained reductions in speeding are a clear indicator of reduced risk.

Ready to bring ISA to your fleet? Download this two-pager to support your advocacy and internal conversations.

These insights come thanks to Tina Roper, Chief Administrative Officer at the DC Child and Family Services Agency, and Michael Travars, President of LifeSafer. We’re grateful for their practical perspective and for sharing real-world lessons on implementing ISA in public fleets. 

Thank you to LifeSafer for their support of Vision Zero. Learn more at LifeSaferISA.com/fleets/vision-zero.