Safety and Security in Transit

by Mark Rowe

Author: Edited by Vania Ceccato, Andrew Newton

ISBN No: 9781137457646

Review date: 29/03/2024

No of pages: 424

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan

Publisher URL:
http://www.palgrave.com/page/detail/safety-and-security-in-transit-environments-vania-ceccato/?sf1=barcode&st1=9781137457646

Year of publication: 10/09/2015

Brief:

Safety and Security in Transit Environments: An Interdisciplinary Approach is edited by Vania Ceccato, Andrew Newton. Hardcover (424 pages), £64. ISBN 9781137457646, published August 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan in the series Crime Prevention and Security Management

price

£64

Moving by mass transit – or waiting to move at a bus or train station – can be the scene of crime, or fear of crime, which can translate into altered behaviour. People may avoid travel after dark for instance.

This collection of academic work draws on urban and transport planning, architecture, engineering and other disciplines, besides security management. The very spectrum of what can happen and has happened on mass transit systems – suicides on tracks, acts of terror or bomb scares, besides more everyday crime or incivilities such as being approached by beggars, being harassed or threatened or robbed – shows its place in city life. And how important this welcome collection is.

The book opens with a foreword by the veteran American academic Marcus Felson who points to four challenges in study of transit crime: it depends on the density of population in mass transit – yet while pick-pockets may thrive in packed train or bus carriages or on crowded platforms, robbers may target lone travellers, ‘stragglers at low-density times’ as he puts it. Second; how do you tell apart from offender from the target and the guardians – the mass of people who give natural surveillance or who are law-abiding and polite? How do you define public space – because not all space is equally secure, as Felson points out. And what about those stragglers? How do you make public transport safe not only for the big and active, but for women and disabled, the more vulnerable?

One of the editors is Swedish, one a criminologist at the University of Huddersfield, and the 20 chapters echo that diversity, ranging over the English-speaking world, Japan and Continental Europe. Newton’s chapter, a study of personal property theft on the London Underground, was a topic at the November 2014 meeting of the Designing out Crime Association (DOCA) as featured in the January 2015 print issue of Professional Security magazine. It concluded: “Factors found to increase risk of theft were those that may encourage congestion of passengers within stations (lifts and waiting rooms) and those that increase levels of accessibility and access to stations (more paths and roads nearby). In contrast, those that reduce theft were those likely to decrease anonymity and increase potential guardianship and offender detection (higher levels of staffing, personal validators, shop rentals and more domestic buildings nearby), and those that disperse passengers throughout the station and avoid congestion (more platforms). As Newton suggests, the statistical analysis offers possibilities for the LU managers and transport police to identify what are the higher-risk locations and times, and staff accordingly. Newton ends his chapter by noting LU’s plans to cut staffing at stations, and yet move towards a 24-hour Tube; which could make the Underground more friendly to crime?

Other chapters cover pick-pocketing at bus stops; and teenagers’ fears of being assaulted when travelling – which as the US authors point out matters because to be a victim of crime is rare; to be afraid of crime may be common – and that matters to the public transport operators if that puts people off travel. Graffiti – or rather ‘gang sign tagging’ at bus stops – may give rise to fear. “Strategies including removing graffiti may therefore help improve perceived safety, as may additional changes to the built environment such as increasing lighting and improving lines of sight at bus stops and train stations.”

As all this may suggest, and as the editors say early on, the book takes a ‘place centred’ approach, looking at the ‘transit environment and the journey’ rather than who the criminals are and why they do crime (because for one thing the pick-pockets too may be travellers, travelling legally by Oyster card or by a travel card because the cost of the ticket is worth the gains from theft). The book, naturally, has plenty to say to those in the field of mass transit, whether security or policing specialists or those keeping the trains, buses and trams running safely, and indeed those setting policy on public transport, as better lighting and supervision of ‘transport nodes’ seems to deter crime. And security managers in related areas, such as retail, given that shops are in termini, can usefully learn about what makes up a secure (and secure-feeling) journey.

The editors end by pointing to directions of further research, such as plotting events or even predicting trends using GIS. More research is in order, for instance because the ‘guardian’ who deters a criminal just by being there may not be aware of it. And the transit system is not isolated; it may not have any access control; boundaries may blur if you think that the start and end of a journey may be on foot (and if that’s the most dangerous-feeling part, down a ill-lit path from a train platform, where does the responsibility of the mass transit operator end – is it door to door, even?).

Safety and Security in Transit Environments: An Interdisciplinary Approach is edited by Vania Ceccato, Andrew Newton. Hardcover (424 pages), £64. ISBN 9781137457646, published August 2015 by Palgrave Macmillan in the series Crime Prevention and Security Management.

Newsletter

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter to stay on top of security news and events.

© 2024 Professional Security Magazine. All rights reserved.

Website by MSEC Marketing