Enhancing Transit Safety for Riders and Workers Through Strategic Collaboration with Law Enforcement

  Concerns about personal safety in transit environments—among both riders and workers—continue to grow. Nationally, assaults on transit workers have tripled between 2008 and 2022. Passengers likewise report increasing experiences of theft, harassment, assault, and other security-related incidents across many systems. Riders who have shifted to other modes frequently cite safety concerns as a primary reason for not returning to transit, while transit agencies report unprecedented volumes of employee requests for reassignment away from frontline and operator roles. These dynamics undermine transit agencies’ ability to deliver reliable, high-quality service, contributing to operator shortages, service interruptions, and scheduling challenges. Declines in ridership linked to safety concerns also affect agencies’ long-term financial sustainability. Mode shift away from transit further carries significant implications for congestion, emissions, and broader public-health and societal outcomes. Improving safety in public transit spaces is therefore a critical priority for agencies, workers, riders, and their partners. Given the scale of recent changes, there is a clear need for research that deepens understanding of the causes of rising safety concerns and identifies the strategies most capable of reversing these trends. The work should strive to accomplish three key aims: 1) to detail the landscape of safety improvement strategies currently deployed by US transit agencies for riders and workers/employees including a discussion of known/measured causes; 2) to evaluate the most widely implemented strategies for both effectiveness and perceived effectiveness in achieving safe conditions inclusive of negative or inequitable shortcoming/externalities; 3) to create a concrete toolkit for agencies tiered by factors such as effectiveness (measured and perceived), speed of implementation, and cost (if possible).

• Record URL:
  • http://apps.trb.org/cmsfeed/TRBNetProjectDisplay.asp?ProjectID=5998
• Supplemental Notes:
  • Contract to a Performing Organization has not yet been awarded.

Language

• English

Project

• Status: Proposed
• Funding: $300,000.00
• Contract Numbers:

  Project A-56

• Sponsor Organizations:

  Transit Cooperative Research Program

  Transportation Research Board
  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC    20001

  Federal Transit Administration

  1200 New Jersey Avenue, SE
  Washington, DC  United States  20590
• Project Managers:

  Schoby, Jamaal

• Start Date: 20251001
• Expected Completion Date: 0
• Actual Completion Date: 0

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Improvements; Law enforcement; Occupational safety; Transit operating agencies; Transit riders; Transit safety
• Subject Areas: Passenger Transportation; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; Safety and Human Factors;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01973727
• Record Type: Research project
• Source Agency: Transportation Research Board
• Contract Numbers: Project A-56
• Files: TRB, RIP
• Created Date: Dec 8 2025 7:39PM