Secure Rail Networks in Smart Cities

Kings Cross Station (Photo: Colin under CC by SA Licence

For five years, a high-flying executive boarded a train in East Sussex on his commute to work, paying £7.20 each day instead of the £4,500 cost of a season ticket.

Eventually his deceit was detected, but by paying £42,550 in unpaid fares he has protected his identity and avoided court action.

There has been outrage that an apparently wealthy commuter can escape prosecution, but his elusive exploits also raise questions about the surveillance of Britain’s rail network outside of towns and cities.

‘Broken Windows theory’

The more reliant the nation’s economy becomes on these sprawling urban centres, the higher the losses when major disruption occurs. But does security in cities also depend on the ‘broken windows theory’, which suggests that serious crime can be reduced through strict enforcement of lesser crimes, such as pickpocketing, vandalism and fare dodging?

Writing in The Guardian, smart-cities researcher Gary Graham recalled a government meeting in which he argued that most people aren’t concerned with hi-tech transport infrastructure or bio-tech innovation but are more bothered about getting by – even surviving – in cities where growth can heighten poverty and crime as much as business prosperity.

Last year, Graham visited the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston to explore, via a series of workshops, how people would procure their goods and services in cities of the future.

He reported that workshop participants felt smart cities were “utopian concepts growing from a vision put forward by one group of businesses”, and that everyday citizens were disenfranchised.

Addressing the fear of crime and problems in the dark underbelly of society have long been concerns for the security profession; in an age of smart cities, these issues must not be neglected. Quizzing stakeholders last week during an inquiry into security on the railways, MPs on the Transport Select Committee heard about one project to support British Transport Police (BTP) officers in targeting pickpockets using London’s stations.

While pickpocketing is not restricted to cities, issues such as people congestion and multiple distractions make them particularly vulnerable. Improved wi-fi connectivity in stations and reduced manned supervision will likely present more opportunities to thieves.

Said Dr Andrew Newton, a research fellow at the University of Huddersfield’s Applied Criminology Centre: “In an era where it looks like we are going to have extended wi-fi coverage on the underground, fewer ticket offices and extended opening hours, what have they [BTP] done to look at the impact of that on crime – particularly with extended wi-fi and people having their mobiles out?”

Railway children

Andy McCullough, of the charity Railway Children, said young people are more often victims of pickpocketing than perpetrators.

Despite increased surveillance, stations are natural places for them to frequent. “Sometimes ticket checks are not consistent across different places,” he says. “I think it is just another place where young people can be lost.”

But McCullough also warned that security in cities could push runaway children to other regions. “If you want to go missing, you want to avoid CCTV,” he said.

“You don’t want to walk through Manchester city centre, where you will be filmed 167 times from various angles. I think it has squeezed young people into other areas where populations are quite transient.”

Concluding, McCullough told MPs that children are “our future passengers” who “will set the culture of railway stations”.

For cities to become safer for vulnerable people, technology must be exploited via a multi-agency approach.

Things are changing, and in recent years the transport police and train operating companies have engaged more closely with voluntary groups. Such collaboration is vital, especially as suicides on the rail network have risen by about 20% since 2010.

In an effort to arrest this trend, smart camera technology has been installed on a hotspot stretch of track in Stoke to identify people at risk.

So, are the safety and security of future cities connected to the ‘broken windows theory’? Devised in the 1980s by James Wilson and George Kelling, this theory argued that a building with several broken windows is more likely to attract further vandalism than a building in good condition.

If the transport network is considered a ‘building’ of sorts, it’s a theory that merits consideration if smart cities are to fulfil their promise.

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