Violence on transit: No one-size-fits-all solution for riders and drivers

The scene on an Edmonton transit bus played out like something from a Hollywood B-movie: Three drunken thugs boarded the bus and began hassling passengers, including a young woman.

When a teenage boy spoke up to protect the woman, the bearded, tattooed louts turned on him, raining punches as he curled up to protect his head. The attackers fled the bus after the driver stopped to call police.

Millions of Canadians use public transit every day and while such violent attacks are uncommon, the prospect of being verbally harassed, of women being groped, of having your smartphone snatched or of being physically assaulted can make the idea of a bus or train ride unappetizing.

Edmonton has had a particularly rough time in recent years. Prior to last Friday’s incident (the attackers remain uncaught), an 18-year-old man was stabbed by a 17-year-old at a transit hub last month. The suspect in that case was later arrested and faces aggravated assault charges.

And two years ago, a man was beaten to death on a light-rail train. His attacker was charged with second-degree murder.

The violence isn’t limited to big cities. A man riding a bus in Kelowna, B.C., late last month was stabbed in the neck by a complete stranger who was getting off the bus. That assailant, too, faces a second-degree murder charge.

Toronto’s sprawling subway system has had incidents of people deliberately pushed off station platforms onto the tracks, one as recently as last April.

For most transit riders, annoyances don’t extend much beyond being forced to listen to shouted cellphone conversations or someone else’s music choices through their overly-loud headphones. But a sense of safety, especially for women, can be eroded by others’ behaviour, even if it’s not violent.

“I believe the transit system here is generally speaking very safe,” Anne Drennan, spokeswoman for Metro Vancouver’s TransLink transit police. “However, that’s not to say that there aren’t incidents that take place that endanger passengers or make passengers feel very uncomfortable.”

Edmonton’s transit system has experienced an upward trend in what it classifies as nuisance and disorder reports in the last two years, according to its latest statistical summary, going from roughly 700 a month in April 2012 to more than 900 last May.

The number of Criminal Code offences climbed to 1,931 last year, compared with 900 the year before and 888 in 2012. However, the number of reported Criminal Code offences per 100,000 riders has actually gone down slightly in the same period.

Assault reports up but so is ridership

“We’ve had a huge increase in ridership since 2008,” Neil Henning, Edmonton Transit’s safety co-ordinator, told Yahoo Canada News.

That’s Toronto’s experience as well, said Brad Ross, communications executive director for the Toronto Transit Commission. While reported incidents may have risen, ridership is climbing an average 2.5 per cent a year.

“When you normalize the data, it’s probably the same,” he said of the incident rate.

There’s been a big push in the Vancouver system to tackle the incidents of sexual harassment and sexual assault on trains and buses, Drennan said.

The number of sex assault reports so far this year has reached 90, compared with 65 in the same period last year. Total assaults climbed to 456 from 353 over the comparable periods.

Drennan said the increase in reports could be the result of TransLink’s See Something, Say Something campaign, launched this year. It encourages riders to report crime, including sending photos, to transit police as it happens via text or a free smartphone app called OnDuty.

“You can send a message straight through to our dispatch centre and our members will be immediately dispatched to whatever the location is, or the jurisdictional police if we’re not nearby, to try and deal with these things before they do get really ugly,” she told Yahoo Canada News.

The system has allowed the thinly spread transit force – 150 members, not all of them in the field, covering 200 bus routes, 134 kilometres of rail line and 57 stations – to reach a hotspot sometimes in time to collar the suspect.

“In the past we would have had to have counted on somebody, the victim or a witness, reporting to us later and of course the suspect’s long gone,” said Drennan.

The all-seeing social-media hive augments the increasing use of closed-circuit cameras in buses, trains and transit hubs. Police will have video of the Edmonton bus attack to work with, for instance.

Ross said Toronto would be interested something like Vancouver’s OnDuty app or any system that gets reports to authorities quicker.

Edmonton has cameras in about half its buses and trains, Henning said. It’s also introducing a system that also allows security staff to see onto vehicles in real time if incidents are reported. And it has software that allows its transit peace officers to target hot spots, as well as a program to jointly patrol with Edmonton police.

Mentally ill riders a big concern

Another major concern for Drennan is how often the mentally ill figure in reports of disruptive behaviour on transit. The Vancouver Province reported in September that statistics show the top eight repeat offenders have mental instability listed on their files.

“Mentally ill persons typically will use transit and very often use transit excessively as a part of their disorder,” said Drennan. “They ride around and ride around and very often they’re irrational in terms of their thinking and their behaviour, the way they act out.”

Unstable behaviour doesn’t always translate to violence, she added, but things like yelling at random passengers can make people uncomfortable.

Vancouver’s transit trains are driverless but its buses obviously aren’t and drivers are frequent targets of assault, often over failure to pay a fare.

TransLink’s unionized drivers initially balked at the installation of protective shield between the operator and riders, concerned they will feel isolated from passengers. But a spate of brutal attacks has led to a pilot program and Drennan said its a matter of time before all buses have the plastic shields.

Meanwhile, driver assaults have dropped eight per cent so far this year, to 92 reports from 100 this time last year, she said.

Edmonton also tested driver shields but is not proceeding with installation because drivers object to them, said Henning.

Toronto has retrofitted its buses and older streetcars with folding shields, though many drivers also refuse to use them, said Ross. New streetcars have drivers in a separate compartment, he said.

Most cases don’t involve getting hit.

“The biggest means of attack is spitting,” said Ross. “Our people will tell you they’d rather be punched than be spat on. It’s pretty disgusting.”

But transit security officials see deterrence as the main weapon against driver assaults, sending the message that attackers will be prosecuted and jailed.

Policy now is not to dispute non-payment of fares but to report the incident immediately via radio, allowing transit security to meet the bus. An announcement over the bus’s PA system tends to send the miscreant scurrying before then, said Ross.

Toronto also has a special liaison unit that works with the Crown to advocate for stiff penalties, including jail and bans from using some or all of the transit system for those who attack drivers.

“The courts are taking it more seriously,” said Ross.

Canadian transit systems and their unions are also supporting federal legislation that would toughen Criminal Code penalties for attacks on transit drivers.

Conservative Senator Bob Runcimen’s Bill S-221 that would make it an aggravating circumstance in sentencing if the victim was a transit driver operating a vehicle passed second reading in the Commons last month.
Similar bills were tabled in the Commons last year by Liberal Ralph Goodale and New Democrat Peter Julian.