Effective Practice Database
Operation Bustag
Project Title:
Operation Bustag
Reference:
EPD448
Overview and Purpose:
The purpose of Operation Bustag was organised in order to deal with incidents of Criminal Damage on Londons' Buses using on-board CCTV.
CDRP/CSP Name:
Police and Transport Operational Command Unit
Partners Contributing to the Project:
Police (lead)with support from SNT,N'hood Watch and Local Authorities.
CDRP/CSP Area or Region:
Greater London
Type of Area:
All
Dates of Project:
Start Date: September 2004
End Date:
Project Status: Ongoing
Financial Cost:
Outgoings were not mentioned
Scanning:
In early 2004 a number of officers from the four areas of TOCU were tasked to carry out a 2 week initiative targeting Criminal Damage to buses using any tactics that they thought would work.
The SW Merton Bus Garage was asked for its recent CCTV recordings of suspects involved in acts of Criminal Damage. From this CCTV data the officers were able to identify 20 subjects which led to the total number of arrest of eighteen suspects. This tactic proved to be the most effective way of dealing with Criminal Damage and the decision was made to continue with the trial.
In September 2004 after a successful trial in SW London, a Sergeant and four Constables were brought together to form Operation Bustag, which was a dedicated unit set up to deal with incidents of Criminal Damage on London’s Buses using on board CCTV. The officers were each given an area of London, NE, NW, SE and SW to look after and meetings were arranged between Officers from Operation Bustag, the Bus Operating Companies, CCTV Analysts and TfL.
We began by looking at data from the Metropolitan Police’s Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS); this showed a relatively low level of reported crime for Criminal Damage on Buses.
We also looked at Code Red data for Criminal Damage this is where the driver of a bus contacts the TfL Control Room (Centre Com) via a radio system and informs them of an incident. This data is collated and mapped every 24hrs showing where incidents occur. This also showed low levels of reports for damage.
Through TfL we arranged a number of meetings across London with the Bus Operating Companies 43 CCTV analysts and it was clear from these meetings that Criminal Damage was a major problem for the Bus Operators. We were concerned that the amount of Criminal Damage reported to buses was very low and therefore did not warrant the targeting of police resources. This analysis showed us that there was a huge difference in what the Bus Operators knew was happening and what the Police thought was happening.
Analysis:
From the Police’s point of view Criminal Damage on a bus was seen as very low level crime with the victim being a company. It did not as such receive much attention.
The Victim (Bus Company) could have been in another area of London some miles away and so was never visited.
The Police usually had insufficient details to complete a crime report and then they had trouble contacting the right person at the bus garage to get more details.
When a crime was investigated the police had trouble getting statements and CCTV evidence. This is due to the unsociable hours worked by the Analysts and the fact that the Analysts could be working at one of a number of garages across several Boroughs.
The Bus Operators used various methods to report crime such as calling police to attend, using the internet, going to the front office of police stations and queuing up. All of these proved to be very time consuming.
When they got a limited response the Operator stopped reporting crime as they felt there was no point and when they did report a crime they never received any feedback.
When they downloaded CCTV evidence no one came to collect it.
They were aware that their local police were busy and so did not want to clog up the system with reporting minor cases of Criminal Damage.
They were not sure what it was the Police wanted. It was clear that there were problems that needed to be resolved in order for offences of Criminal Damage to buses to be reported and then investigated. This in turn would give us for the first time a true level of reporting and allow us to put processes in place to deal with them.
We sat down with the Bus Operators and Transport for London and the following problems were identified
• There was no easy method of reporting Criminal Damage
• They never knew who to contact and wanted a single point of Contact (one stop shop)
• There was a lack of training available for the analysts and they had no way sharing of Best Practice
• If they supplied CCTV how would we use it to Identify Suspects
• There was no system in place for them to receive regular feedback on all of their cases
• There were no Preventative measures to discourage youths from damaging buses
Response:
It was decided to speed up and standardise the method for Bus Operating Companies throughout London to report incidents of Criminal Damage and at the same time to allow us to collect data and intelligence on when and where these crimes were taking place.
We produced a one page electronic document with protected text) this allowed the Bus Company Analyst to tab from one box to another supplying enough information for a Crime report to be completed.
At first we spoke with the Crime Reporting Information System (CRIS) Integrity Team who was happy that we were not changing the inputting of crime.
We then spoke to the Crime Policy Unit for the Metropolitan Police and followed that by speaking to the Project Manager for the Telephone Investigation Bureau TIB).
With everyone's agreement a letter was sent out to the Crime managers in all 32 London Boroughs informing them of the new reporting process and asked them to set up and supply an e-mail address for their (TIB)& we set up an e-mail address of Bustag@met.police.uk for the Bus Operators to send in their crime reports to us.
Through regular meetings with the Bus Operators and crime management units the Bustag 1 form has been amended on a number of occasions to incorporate much more detailed information.
We quality assure the Bustag 1 form and then extract data from it for the Bustag database before forwarding on to the Telephone Investigation Bureau on the Borough where the crime was committed.
The Aim of the exercise was to provide a single point of Contact (one stop shop) for each of the 43 CCTV suites
During our discussions with the Bus Operating Companies they brought up the problem of never knowing who to contact or where to go to find anything out. Operation Bustag provided that Single point of contact by giving officers
geographical responsibility for areas of London with each having responsibility for between 10 and 12 garages that contain CCTV suits. Many problems and issues have been resolved through partnership working and effective
communication.
These Bustag Field Intelligence Officers (FIO’s) attend regular meetings with the Bus Operators from their areas to keep them up to date with recent events, they collect evidence packs from the Operators, and they are responsible for identifying suspects from CCTV and are responsible for supplying regular feedback.
Assessment:
Operation Bustag is a permanent team of officers working in partnership with London's bus companies and Transport for London who specialise in identifying those responsible for committing acts of criminal damage on-board buses.
The number of recorded acts of Criminal Damage on Buses in London has risen by 218% year on year but in the same periods the number of persons accused of Criminal Damage on Buses in London has risen by 452% year on year.
The clear up rate for Criminal Damage tripled in some areas.
These figures would suggest that Operation Bustag has been successful in increasing the reporting of crime and identifying suspects for Criminal Damage on Buses. This will deliver a culture change in respect of passenger
behaviour, and their percept of safety and security on buses.
Other Benefits:
It became clear from early on in Operational Bustag that we would have to look at some form of preventative measures to help to reduce instances of Criminal Damage.
In mid 2005 the decision was taken to make a short film about Operation Bustag and several meetings were held with Media and Communications, members of the Senior Management Team and the Metropolitan Police Video branch to discuss a story line and content. Once this has been agreed a number of suitable locations and volunteers were found, and over a period of a few months a film in DVD format was made.
Prior to release and printing the film was shown to a number of school children, the Department for Education and Skills and Transport for London to discuss or highlight any issues. All of the comments were positive and the most important audience the Children themselves thought that the film was pitched just at the right level.
With all stakeholders in agreement 1000 copies of the DVD were ordered and 500 copies of these were sent out to Territorial Policing for onward distribution to Safer Schools Officer, Safer Neighbourhood Teams etc.
At the same time Operation Bustag was involved in Briefing all supervisors of Safer Neighbourhood Teams on the role of Bustag and how they and their teams could assist.
Operation Bustag has also produced a PowerPoint presentation to be delivered in schools along with the DVD. The PowerPoint is designed to show school children how good the CCTV on buses is and it is hoped that youths involved in Criminal Damage or those thinking about it will now think again.
The presentation gets across the following points:
• How good the images are
• Where they get on and off shows us where they may live or where they may go to school
• Where they gather with their friends in the evenings or weekends
• The fact that we have access to a school uniform database
• How we can trace their Tags
• How we can match the CCTV with Custody Imaging Pictures
• The fact that we will not hesitate to publish their images in local newspapers
• We will play the CCTV to their parents and the Courts
• How they could lose any free travel concession they have
• The DVD and the PowerPoint leave the audience with the question
“ Is it really worth DAMAGING your future for this”
Lessons Learned:
A problem that was highlighted as a result of training and feedback showed that some analysts were responsible for more than one garage and they were not always informed of damage that had occurred. They stated that the drivers were supposed to complete a company occurrence report at the end of their shift detailing any incidents that had taken place. They were aware that for a lot of their drivers English was their second language and they did not feel confident in writing out reports.
Operation Bustag put together a short easy to use tick box occurrence form that can be filled out in a few seconds in order that drivers can now report incidents of Criminal Damage to their analysts. This form has been well received and is now being used by many garages.
Operation Bustag also ran a poster campaign in Partnership with TfL to highlight to drivers the need to complete the Driver Occurrence Reports. These posters were sent out to 80 London Garages.
Due to the limited amount of formal training available to Bus Company analysts and so as to bring everyone up to the same standard, TfL in partnership with an external training company (with input from Operation Bustag) put Together a BTEC level 3 course entitled CCTV for Transport Analysts, this is a 3 day training course for operational staff involved in the transport industry who have responsibility for downloading and analysing video footage taken from on board CCTV cameras. The initial role out of the course was funded by TfL. All the staff that attended and passed the course was awarded a nationally recognised BTEC level 3 Certificate by the Edexcel Foundation and certification by Tavcom which is also nternationally recognised. This course now forms part of the training providers portfolio and is available to anyone worldwide.
Name:
Michael Welding
Address:
Operation Bustag, Transport OCU
District or County:
200 Buckingham Palace Road, SW1W 9TJ
Email:
michael.welding@met.police.uk
Telephone:
0207 027 8950