Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) released its comprehensive safety and security plan outlining challenges facing the system and what actions can be taken by the authority, riders, employees, policymakers and the business community in a holistic approach that aims to deliver a safety and more secure system and support vulnerable populations on the system.
The plan, “Leading the Way: SEPTA’s Response to Safety and Security,” lays out in detail what the problems facing the Authority are, where they are on the system and what SEPTA is doing about them.
The foundation of the strategic safety and security plan is SEPTA’s SCOPE (Safety, Cleaning, Ownership, Partnership and Engagement) program, which was created in 2021 as a systemwide, coordinated effort to connect vulnerable individuals with social services and provide a safe, clean transit system for riders and employees.
“We are tackling some of the most difficult issues society faces, and we need the involvement of everyone in pursuing solutions,” said SEPTA General Manager and CEO Leslie S. Richards. “Our investment in SCOPE is critical to ensuring SEPTA can provide safe, secure and reliable service that supports our city and region through the current recovery and for the long-term.”
SCOPE has mobilized scores of partners in government, the nonprofit and business sectors and academia during its first year to help address the challenges of the vulnerable population.
“With SCOPE, we are working collaboratively to solve challenges that are upstream from SEPTA,” said Kenneth Divers, director of outreach services for SEPTA. “We won’t stop until we’ve reached our goal: to make homelessness rare, brief and nonrecurring.”
The SCOPE outreach personnel work in close coordination with the SEPTA Transit Police Department, which has increased patrols on trains and at stations in recent months.
“SEPTA knows that riders have concerns about safety and security on the system, and we are addressing them,” said Acting Police Chief Charles Lawson. “We have increased police visibility to deter crime, and we are closely monitoring feedback from our customers to respond to quality-of-life concerns.”
SEPTA has also enhanced its security measures, increased its cleaning schedules and expanded the number of social service outreach workers on the system from seven to more than 50.
“As workers return to offices throughout the region, SEPTA will continue to rely on its SCOPE strategy to ensure that its system is safe, clean, reliable and efficient,” said SEPTA Chief Operating Officer Scott Sauer. “There is nothing more important to us than the safety of our riders, the vulnerable individuals on our system and our 9,000-plus employees.”
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SEPTA's strategic safety plan is linked here.
