At the South West Transit Association (SWTA) and New Mexico Transit Association (NMTA) joint conference, Gary Thomas, president/executive director of Dallas Area Rapid Transit (DART) talked about the leadership role DART has taken in addressing the issue of human trafficking.
He said a little over a year ago, U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx issued a challenge for all of the transportation agencies to stand up to human trafficking and become a leader against it. “When I first heard it I thought, I appreciate that, I know it’s important, but there’s a lot going on right now,” Thomas said. A DART board member had recently been at an American Public Transportation Association conference where there was a session on human trafficking and Thomas said Kristen Joyner, executive director of SWTA, had come around the same time to talk to the agency.
Hearing the statistics about human trafficking and the role transportation agencies can play and that public transportation is often used to transport people being trafficked, DART took several steps in addressing the issue in 2014.
The first step was establishing an internal human trafficking committee, led by DART’s chief operating officer. They completed personnel training with all personnel that interacts with the customers, which was about 2,000 people. They were trained on what to look for, what to do and who to call if they saw something suspicious. That training has since been expanded to the entire organization. “Everyone has been through or is going through the training,” Thomas stated.
DART met with local human trafficking stakeholders and established a partnership. “This is not our core business,” he explained, “We’re about moving people. But there are a lot of organizations that you may not be aware of today, but this is their core business.
“They were thrilled to realize we were interested, that we were engaging and that we were going to be part of this team to deal with this issue.”
Thomas also gave testimony at legislative committee hearings on human trafficking and they created a local and regional human trafficking coalition.
The coalition partners include other transportation providers – DART, Trinity Railway Express, Denton County Transportation Authority, The T in Fort Worth, Greyhound, Amtrak, the Texas Department of Transportation, South West Transit Association, Sun Metro and El Paso. It also includes a variety of social services and the Dallas Police Department.
Impact on Lives
The average lifespan of someone caught in trafficking is less than 10 years once they’re in it. When looking at human trafficking around the world, Thomas said it’s in the tens of millions of people every single year.
“A lot of people are trafficked on public transportation,” Thomas explained. “That’s why it’s so important that we become part of this.”
January is National Human Trafficking Month and DART installed posters throughout its system, on buses, trains and at stops and stations. They hosted a keynote speaker, a local human trafficking survivor, and hosted an event at the West End Transfer Center, where the partners were more than willing to come and help out.
They also have a video on YouTube, where Thomas talks about the partnership they have created.
Kristen Joyner said DART has made the employee training available to other agencies that ask for them and have shared their print ads, as well. She said of DART, it hasn’t been about just training the drivers on what to look for, “The executive team has taken on responsibility of learning about this. It’s a top to bottom organizational commitment.”
Following his presentation, Kristen Joyner presented DART’s Gary Thomas with the SWTA Nation Award for its commitment and efforts on addressing human trafficking. She stressed that it’s the highest honor SWTA has to honor.
