Public transport is vital to preserving energy resources and to minimising pollution in urban areas. It is fundamental to the economic wellbeing of an area and provides access for residents to essential services. As the poorest persons in communities are often ‘captive’ to the use of public transport, vehicles and facilities that are perceived as unsafe may provide a significant barrier to social inclusion.

Crime and disorder on public transport systems can have serious consequences for the operations of the systems. If people become afraid to travel because of crime, patronage will fall. This will result in reduced revenues, which may result in cut-backs in staff and services. This will harm not only the transport systems but also the communities that depend upon them.

Many crime and disorder problems occurring in the wider community also occur in the public transport environment. However, the public transport environment is particularly conducive to certain problems, such as pickpocketing, indecent assaults robbery and graffiti. Two features of this environment contribute to the heightened risk of these crimes:

• Overcrowding during peak periods makes thefts and indecent assaults (e.g. groping) easier to commit.
• Lack of supervision from staff at other times of the day or night contributes to vandalism and graffiti, robbery of staff and passengers, assaults on staff and passengers, persons being pushed under trains, fare evasion and staff theft of fares.

Numerous surveys have found that passengers fall victim to a wide range of crimes while using public transport. For instance, one recent household survey carried out in England by Crime Concern and Transport & Travel Research (1997) found that around ten percent of respondents reported personal experience of deliberate pushing or hostile staring whilst using public transport (Figure 1). Furthermore, about five percent of males reported being threatened with violence and just under ten percent of women reported being a victim of sexual assault, harassment, or men exposing themselves. The differences observed between males and females in this study reflect both the different experiences of males and females on public transport and the different characteristics of the respondents, with females more likely to recall and report some types of incidents.

Males

Females

Furthermore, research into the experiences of young people in Britain revealed that 16% of respondents, aged 10 to 12 years of age, had something stolen from them in the previous 12 months, while waiting for or travelling on public transport. Furthermore, 12% of respondents aged 13 and 14, and 8% of respondents 15 years and over, also reported such a theft. See the section ‘Young People as the Victims of Crime or Anti-Social Behaviour’ in Crime Concern’s report Young People and Crime on Public Transport for the Department for Transport.

Crimes committed against staff and the system are similarly diverse. For example, the Health and Safety Executive recorded the following incidents occurring on railways and tramways in Great Britain in the 2001/2002 year:

• 1709 train incidents occurring on the railways, of which 911 were primarily the result of vandalism (e.g. obstructions, arson attacks, missile attacks);

• 353 serious assaults on railway employees; and

• 275 people killed trespassing on the railways. See the Health and Safety Executive report Railway Safety 2001/2002

In comparison to employees in other occupations, public transport employees are at a particularly high risk of assault. See the Home Office report Violence at Work. This is not surprising, considering that the duties of public transport employees are often associated with a large number of risk factors, such as keeping order, collecting fares, handling money and working late at night.

Vandalism and graffiti are more likely to be committed against public than private property, and the risk of these crimes on public transport is further increased because vehicles and facilities are unsupervised by staff for large portions of the day or night. Furthermore, graffiti writers are attracted to vehicles, bus shelters, stations and linesides because their work is so highly visible at these locations.

Public transport facilities also experience a wide range of disorderly conduct, often associated with loitering by homeless persons, beggars, drunks, prostitutes and drug dealers. Disorderly loitering at stations and bus shelters by young persons, can also be a significant problem on some systems. In the case of homeless persons, stations may provide needed shelter and amenities. In the case of drug dealers, beggars and prostitutes, the attraction may be the large number of potential clients frequenting the system.

Finally, robberies, thefts and offences involving motor vehicles occur more frequently in the public transport environment than might be expected. For example, a recent Home Office study of robberies committed throughout England and Wales estimated that 8% of the robbery incidents took place on public transport. See the Home Office report The nature of personal robbery. 

Furthermore, the British Transport Police statistics on offences committed on the railways in Great Britain identify theft of passenger property and offences involving motor vehicles and pedal cycles as accounting for a large number of offences recorded by the British Transport Police (Figure 2). A range of BTP statistics for the 2001/2002 year are available on their website at: http://www.btp.police.uk/annual_report.htm

However, official statistics, such as these, are likely to misrepresent the relative extent of crimes occurring on the system. For example, some crimes are likely to be highly reported to police, such as thefts of and from vehicles for the purposes of claiming on insurance policies, whilst some crimes, such as indecent assault, are likely to be highly under-reported.

The Department for Transport also compile statistics on assaults on bus staff, assaults on bus passengers and vandalism to buses. See section 5 ‘Crime on public transport’ in the document A Bulletin of Public Transport Statistics: 2002 Edition .