Crime and Public Transport

Abstract

Crime in public transport covers a bewildering variety of offenses committed in forms of transport including trams, buses, subways, commuter trains, taxis, and jitneys. The targets of crime can be the system itself (as in vandalism or fare evasion), employees (as in assaults on ticket collectors), or passengers (as in pickpocketing or overcharging). A distinction must be made between crimes facilitated by overcrowding and by lack of supervision. Both are the result of financial constraints, plaguing all forms of public transport, which result in too little space for passengers at busy periods and not enough staff to supervise vehicles and facilities at other times. Many successful measures have been reported in dealing with specific crimes. More generally, much crime can be "designed out" of new subway systems and older train and bus stations, and order maintenance may be an effective transit policing strategy. Research has been less successful in determining whether transit systems spread crime from high- to lower-crime areas and whether some transit systems and forms of transport are much less safe than others are. Little success in deliberately reducing fear has been achieved. The security challenges presented by new light rail systems and forms of taxi service may not differ greatly from those encountered at present.