CCTV at bus stops to be rolled out across London after ‘very positive impact’ on making women feel safer
by OneNormalBloke
CCTV at bus stops to be rolled out across London after ‘very positive impact’ on making women feel safer
by OneNormalBloke
23 comments
I like the idea that bus stops will be places anyone can go to know that they’re covered by CCTV. It could turn them into slightly safer places on very street to go to if you have issues.
Can you please repost the article in full so we don’t have to click onto another website to know what the details are exactly? I don’t want to support sensationalist news
Asking women here, will this actually make you feel safer?
The use of CCTV cameras at bus stops is set to be rolled out across London after a trial scheme made women and girls feel safer.
Transport for London has been piloting the idea at 20 bus stops as part of Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan’s wider efforts to reduce violence against women and girls.
Now the scheme is to be expanded after having a “very positive impact” – as long as funding can be found.
The scheme launched in April last year at five bus shelters – at Peckham Library, Finsbury Park, Gants Hill, Stratford and Turnpike Lane.
Then last November announced a further 15 locations as part of a 12-month trial of the effectiveness of the surveillance cameras.
The 15 additional locations were in Brent, Croydon, Hackney, Hammersmith and Fulham, Hillingdon, Lambeth, Newham, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Westminster.
These included locations with high footfall, quieter locations with less frequent bus services, higher crime areas, or locations where women and girls have reported feeling more unsafe.
TfL has been surveying women passengers at four of the first bus stops to be fitted with CCTV.
Claire Mann, TfL’s chief operating officer, said the initial feedback had been hugely positive.
She told the TfL board this week: “We have done an initial evaluation looking at data and impacts and feelings of safety for women.
“Over 1,000 women have been surveyed, with 80 per cent saying the presence of CCTV made them feel safer, and 73 per cent said they were more likely to travel by bus if there was CCTV at other bus shelters.
“We are going to analyse the remaining 16 shelters. It’s quite clear that rolling out CCTV at bus shelters is definitely the way forward. It’s had a very, very positive impact.
“We need to ensure we have the funding to do so, but it sounds like we will be rolling it out further now.”
The use of CCTV at bus shelters – in addition to cameras on the buses – was pledged in Sir Sadiq’s 2024 mayoral manifesto.
He also promised CCTV “in black taxis, private hire vehicles and minicabs”.
Speaking this week, the mayor said there were already more than 77,000 CCTV cameras across TfL services.
He said: “It’s clearly important we are innovative in going further. That is what the bus shelter initiative is about, with a particular focus on women and girls.
“It’s the perception of crime as well as addressing the issue of crime.”
Images from the cameras will be available to the Metropolitan police to prevent and investigate crime and to improve incident response with live images.
Only the Met police will have access to the footage, which will be retained for 31 days.
The trial had been welcomed by London TravelWatch, the passenger watchdog, which said it knew from research that many people can feel unsafe when waiting for buses, particularly women and girls.
TfL is battling to reverse a long-term decline in bus passenger numbers that is often attributed to the amount of delays that result in longer journey times.
However the bus network remains the best-used of TfL services, with more than four million trips on a typical weekday.
TfL commissioner Andy Lord said the research would seek to understand what difference CCTV cameras ay bus stops made in relation to women’s feelings of safety, security and confidence, and how likely they are to travel by bus.
He said it was linked to another initiative to ensure that locations featuring the Tube roundel, such as London Underground stations, become known as “safe havens” for passengers feeling threatened.
More police presence on the street would be helpful for women.
Now you can be sexually assaulted on film and the perpetrator get away with it.
At night, the poor women take the bus and those better off take Ubers/taxis.
I do the Uber nightshift and 90% of my passengers tend to be women and often they tell me they don’t feel safe walking home or taking public transport.
They’re barely even a deterrent these days
The key thing not mentioned here is that this will be available live for the Met to monitor.
If I remember it correctly London is one of the leaders in the CCTV coverage. Till people and women in particular stop being in denial why they feel unsafe nothing will change for the better.
Why is it about women feeling safer everyone should just feel safer guys
Can they also go back to ergonomic bus stop benches that your arse doesn’t slide off of?
More obvious CCTV I take it as Buses have CCTV and pretty much every street in London has CCTV as is anyway.
note its a feeling, not actual
The thing is right it costs money to get people to look over footage and the other thing is we need more good people who want to protect to join the force also more budget but then bigger budget means more taxes apparently but why am I paying more taxes in a city that can barely protect. We also need mental health professionals even if they researchers to take a good look at societies mental health particularly our men’s mental health and giving them the necessary therapy also jobs are necessary well paying jobs to give them a sense of purpose. Up skill our nation right now it’s a shambles men are pent up frustrated and the unhealthier then ever. Fix the real problem!
Brilliant news. More areas should follow. Important to get the response right too alongside cctv
I can think of something else that would make women feel safer.
It’s a good start
It’s quite a placebo. “Well they don’t use the CCTV in stations to stop fare dodging, and don’t use CCTV to stop graffiti, and rely on policing the tube with posters, and don’t answer the help points… but this CCTV will be totally different.”
London already has more CCTV per a square meter then Bejing does, China is notorious around the world for the extenet they spy on their citizens, if you actually pay attention its incredible just how many cameras there are in London and British public transport in general, you’d be daft to think they don’t employ the same monitoing techniques, they literally helped pioneer them!, yet it has no affect on crime, why because it’s by design, the law is simply not enforced because it isn’t in the intreast of the state to prevent crime.
The United kingdom is a anarcho tyranny, the state encourage crime because it justifies the existence of the police state whilst additionally weakening the prole class, it’s so obvious if you’ve actually lived in London as criminals operate in broad daylight. If you actually want to see someone investigated in the UK accuse them of hatespeech instead of sexual harassment.
They forgot to mention facial recognition being added
I’m maianly worried about the fact that they are fighting the symptoms not the cause. Women should never even have to feel worried about getting back home at night, that’s the world we should be aiming at. And unfortunately it’s the opposite.
UK copying China.
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