Drive to cut crime on public transport

At a meeting next Thursday, members of the South Yorkshire Integrated Transport Authority (SYITA) are expected to endorse the new crime and disorder reduction plan, which will run from 2012 to 2015.

A previous strategy, approved in 2007, related to only buses and trams.

However, since then the authority has been negotiating with British Transport Police and says there is now a need for “extended partnership working” to “address the challenges facing the rail network”.

South Yorkshire Passenger Transport Executive’s director for customer experience, David Young, says in a report set to go before next week’s meeting that the aim of the strategy is to “provide customers, staff and our partner organisations with a safe and secure environment where they can travel, work and operate without the fear or the perception of fear of crime bring a barrier”.

Mr Young’s report adds that the crime and disorder reduction plan will “operate in a time of unprecedented financial constraint within the public sector and the transport industry”.

He adds: “As such it is essential for all partners to adopt a flexible approach to ensure we are delivering the quality of service passengers and the industry expects.

“This means having the right people in the right places, doing the right things, and this will be delivered by intervening at hot spots of risk identified through intelligence.”

According to the new strategy, visible policing is “essential to improving passenger perception of crime and disorder”.

Research carried out with passengers indicates that patrols and uniformed station staff make them feel safer.

As a result, transport bosses say they aim to deliver “intelligence-led visible policing across the transport network”.