As our transit systems evolve, so must our programs to keep safety as our number one priority. In the past year, the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (LA Metro) has faced some serious challenges to combat crimes in and around our facilities.
In 2014, LA Metro experienced a spike in incidents of assaults against bus operators. At the same time, Metro learned through our semi-annual Customer Satisfaction Survey that 22 percent of our bus and rail riders reported being sexually harassed in some way.
Metro launched a multi-faceted effort involving operations, communications and our policing agency, the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (LASD), emphasizing engineering, education and enforcement – what we call the 3-Es.
The first action was to find engineering solutions. Operations retrofitted a test group of buses with television monitors that display the live feed of our bus-mounted CCTV cameras. One monitor was placed above the operator so that passengers can see themselves boarding and paying their fares with the second monitor placed on the bulkhead showing seated passengers.
Step two was to install a polycarbonate barrier to protect operators. Metro worked with New Flyer to add barriers on our order of 900 new buses, and steps are underway to retrofit an additional 1,300 buses within two years. We are encouraged by preliminary results that indicate more fare compliance and fewer assaults.
Education is the second component in our safety strategy. We launched a campaign called “Meet Metro’s Best” on buses and trains to humanize front-line employees by highlighting operators and mechanics with a personal story.
Metro is also augmenting operator training with Transit Ambassador, a program from the Canadian Urban Transit Association. It emphasizes customer service and features modules to help operators deal with stress in their lives and defuse potentially dangerous situations.
Metro’s customer survey found that an unacceptably high percentage of riders were subjected to sexual contact such as unwanted comments, touching and exposure. In April, Metro launched “It’s Off Limits,” a campaign encouraging victims and witnesses of sexual harassment to make police reports. We held a widely-covered news conference and distributed materials on all buses and train cars. Five months later we surveyed again and the percentage of passengers reporting sexual harassment declined from 22 percent to 19 percent.
Law enforcement is a mammoth undertaking with a system with 2,200 buses, 87 miles of rail and 1.4 million weekday boardings. In the past, the LASD focused on enforcement and Metro concentrated on making the system as efficient as possible. But recently, Metro Operations, Communications, Planning and the LASD collaborated to design a simple process in the event that a Metro employee is the first point of contact for a citizen complaint.
So far our approach is producing positive results, and we hope for even better results in the coming year as we continue to maintain our safety pledge to our employees and patrons.
