Smile, you're on transit camera

Globe And Mail
Oct. 01, 2005

This Monday, the Toronto Transit Commission is rolling out 20 buses mounted with security cameras to take snapshots of riders. The test route for the pilot project is the No. 35 Jane Street bus -- the same route on which two passengers, one of them 11-year-old Tamara Carter, were wounded in a shooting last November.

According to TTC officials, if the project is successful, all 1,750 of its buses and streetcars could be equipped at a cost of up to $19-million, with an additional $10-million to equip subway cars as well.

Toronto joins such Canadian jurisdictions as Montreal, Edmonton, Winnipeg and Brampton in using cameras on public transit to deter crime. Orwellian measures or necessary safeguards? Here's what five other cities are doing:

After driver assaults nearly doubled in 2004 from the previous year, the Washington transit authority installed cameras on an additional 125 buses. (One hundred vehicles were initially fitted in 2002.) Each bus carries several motion cameras at a cost of $8,000 (U.S.) per system. Steven Taubenkibel, a spokesman for the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority, says all new buses in the fleet, including 250 due by next spring, will come equipped with the systems. In June, when a Washington driver was hit with a baseball-sized rock, the attacker was caught on tape. The assailant was apprehended after the tape was released to the local media. "Clearly, [the cameras] are helpful and useful in protecting our employees and our customers," Mr. Taubenkibel says.

Los Angeles

Like several major cities across the United States, including Chicago and New York, Los Angeles began using cameras on its buses in the late 1980s to counter graffiti and other forms of vandalism. A monitor allows the driver to survey what is happening in different areas of the vehicle. The cameras have since provided evidence for traffic accidents, assaults and shootings. The transit authority has also used its cameras in its own legal defence in personal injury cases. "We found it was deterring crime that was happening on the bus," says Rick Jager, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA). But in the wake of the London bombings, Los Angeles is beefing up local security on public transit and planning to install cameras in its subway cars and light-rail lines, in addition to the buses. The cameras will become part of a larger fibre-optic network -- linked with subway-station cameras that can zoom, pan and tilt -- monitored in real time by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department. Mr. Jager expects the cameras to be installed in every subway car by the end of the year.

Montreal

A planned major overhaul of Montreal's transit system will expand a pilot project of 50 camera-fitted buses throughout its 169 routes, says Robert Delage, customer service director for the Société de Transport de Montréal. The STM expects that the 340 new subway cars currently being procured will also include camera surveillance. The new system will patch into a state-of-the-art central control room, which is currently being built, that will monitor all cameras in subway stations and cars. "Especially with what happened with London, Madrid. People want to have that information right away," Mr. Delage says.

Paris

Despite their differences, France and the United States are headed in similar directions, Big Brother-wise. Last month, the French Interior Minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, announced that Paris will install cameras in all 4,000 of its buses in the aftermath of the London attacks. The initiative is part of a broader plan to install 6,500 cameras in the Paris Métro by 2007 and 20,000 more closed-circuit cameras throughout the city in public areas. Currently, installing a security camera requires the authorization of a judge and department prefect. The government is in the process of drafting legislation, expected to go before the French cabinet this month, that would expedite that process.

Edmonton

For nearly a decade, the Edmonton Transit Service has employed cameras in nine of its buses, primarily to deter youth vandalism, says Ken Koropeski, acting manager of the ETS. Whenever a bus route is experiencing increased vandalism, Mr. Koropeski says, the ETS deploys one of its camera-equipped vehicles on the route. The cameras, which were updated four years ago at a cost of $10,000 per bus, allow the drivers to mark video footage with a button, creating an easy tracking point on the recording when there is an incident. The videos are then used in co-operation with the city's schools to finger the culprit. "We can identify who has been creating the problems," Mr. Koropeski says. "Then we speak to the administration. It's been very effective."