How body cams are increasing safety in Public Transportation.

Current Safety Challenges in Public Transportation

There are many challenges affecting public transport safety, and it's important to assess each one individually. Consider these five major challenges as you develop your action plans: 

1. Verbal and physical assault: This is often the primary problem organizations need to address. Both passengers and staff face the ongoing threat of assault and feel helpless about preventing incidents or ending them. 
2. Fare evasion: Staff members must be able to address fare evasion with passengers safely, but these incidents routinely become conflicts with an increased risk of verbal or physical violence. As a result, many employees may be less willing to fulfill this aspect of the job.
3. Vandalism and property damage: Breakage, destruction, graffiti, and trash are common problems that buses and trains face. Even when there is no violence, staff have few ways to address the damage, and it hurts customers' sense of safety.
4. Terrorist threats: Public transit systems also need to be alert for terrorist activity, suspicious activity, and indications that an unsafe incident is about to occur.
5. Accidents and liability issues: Finally, it's increasingly hazardous for employees to actively resolve incidents and altercations due to the increased risk of pushback, threats, and job loss.  

How Body Cams Address These Challenges

Public transit staff need backup, and both passengers and staff are safer when there are objective eyes monitoring the entire transit system. Body cams provide these supports by becoming an active deterrent, allowing staff to communicate in real-time with centralized support, and providing a record of altercations in clear detail. Consider these specific benefits: 

Deterrence

When potential assailants see a body cam on and recording, they are much more likely to reconsider their actions. Highly visible body cams can decrease incidents of physical and verbal assault. Wearing a camera can also make staff feel safer patrolling and intervening in potential incidents.

Evidence

When incidents do occur, body cams collect footage of the incident. The video and audio recordings can substantiate responses like criminal charges, civil charges, claims to insurance companies, and banning individuals from using services. 

Emergency Responses

When an individual employee with a bodycam encounters an emergency situation, they can easily call in for backup. Centralized security staff can then advise them on the right response, asses the situation in real time, and send additional staff or emergency services to the specific location.

De-Escalation

When people are recorded by an authorized party, they are likely to moderate their responses, de-escalating or even halting their response to a situation. Recordings also make people on multiple sides of an altercation less likely to lie or misrepresent the incident. 

Training Opportunities

Companies can review footage to create training scenarios, make sure training addresses common scenarios, and better give staff the tools and information they need to do their jobs safely.

Key Features of the HALOS Body Camera Solution for Public Transportation

However, not all body cams are equally capable of providing these benefits. At HALOS, we develop our body cam soutions to have the features you need to actively increase public transport safety: 

• Robust and durable hardware
• In-built weather resistance
• Long battery life that exceeds shift lengths
• Convenient batteries that are easy to change out
• Wide-angle lenses
• Night vision and low-light capabilities
• One-touch activation
• Encrypted video storage
• Automated upload, sorting, and tagging capabilities 

Implementation Considerations

When you're implementing a new body cam program, you can see improved results by: 

• Testing out small-scale implementation to ensure everything integrates well with your existing protocols
• Providing helpful staff training
• Explaining the benefits adoption and compliance offers to employees
• Implementing better data management and information security programs to make sure the footage is safely stored and properly accessible