Reducing Assaults on Transit Operators

FTA data from 2018 through 2023 shows the combined fatality and injury rate from assaults nearly doubled, rising from 9.90 per 100 million vehicle revenue miles in 2018 to 18.93 in 2023.

That is the figure behind the federal rulemaking, General Directive 24-1 and the assault mitigation language in the amended safety plan rule. It is also the figure an operator union will bring to a Safety Committee meeting, and agency leadership should walk in already knowing it.

The composition matters, because it changes what a mitigation has to accomplish. In 2023, non-physical assaults were 64 percent of events at 6,284. Physical assaults were 31 percent at 3,001. Injury-only events were 5 percent at 493. There was one homicide.

Most events are verbal and threatening rather than physical. That is why de-escalation capability, visible documentation and a fast dispatcher response affect outcomes so much. Most of these situations are still recoverable at the point they are noticed.

Bus assault rates rose from 8.25 to 13.77 across the period, and 87 percent of bus assaults occur on the vehicle. For a bus agency, the operator workstation is the location.

Rail rose much faster, from 15.96 to 36.58, and 61 percent of rail assaults occur at stations rather than on trains.

The strategic point follows directly. Rail risk concentrates at stations, and most agencies have spent their video budget on vehicles. Station-area coverage at identify grade, station lighting and working call points are where the unaddressed rail risk sits. If a rail agency is choosing between another onboard camera and a platform camera at identify grade, the data points at the platform.

Industry data for 2025 shows assaults on riders down 14 percent, assaults on workers down 7 percent, and total public transit fatalities down 17 percent year over year.

Context matters too. Serious crimes on transit are less than a quarter of one percent of serious crimes nationally, and public transit accounts for about 1.4 percent of total surface transportation fatalities. Transit is characterized as roughly ten times safer for passengers than traveling by car.

The conclusion is the honest one. Agencies that invested in mitigations are seeing measurable declines. That is a better argument than alarmism, and unlike alarmism it is true. An agency board is far more likely to fund a program described this way than one built on fear.

Operator area barriers restrict unwanted entry into the workstation, and the amended safety plan rule requires agencies to consider them. Camera coverage of the operator workstation with visible signage documents events and has some deterrent effect on opportunistic behavior.

Live look-in is the underrated one. A dispatcher who can see and hear a developing situation can give responders a real description without the operator having to speak, which matters enormously when speaking is what escalates the encounter. Covert alarm serves the same purpose at the operator position.

Post-incident evidence supports prosecution, and prosecution is part of what changes behavior on a route over time. A case that goes nowhere because the video was unusable teaches the wrong lesson to everyone involved.

Be clear about the limit. FTA's own data ranks de-escalation training alongside technology, and a camera does not de-escalate anything. It documents, it enables a faster response, and it supports a prosecution. Training does the prevention. Any integrator who tells you otherwise is selling hardware.