They want “to make the environment as safe as possible for the overwhelming majority of people”.
Irish Rail is set to equip 200 members of its staff with body cameras in an effort to combat and reduce anti-social behaviour on trains and DART services.
The bodycams will initially be given to ticket inspectors and customer service officers as part of a pilot project and the new technology is expected to be rolled out before the end of this year.
Similar measures have proven to be beneficial for Southern Railways in the UK, which trialled the bodycams and saw a 50% drop in incidents – particularly serious assaults on their staff.
Speaking with FM104, Irish Rail’s Barry Kenny said that they’re hoping to see a similar drop.
“What we want to do is prevent anti-social behaviour incidents from developing on our services,” Kenny said.
“We’ve worked with railways in the UK who have introduced bodycams and in some cases they’ve seen a reduction of 50% in incidents.
“What happens is the very fact that people are being recorded changes their behaviour, and stops issues from developing. We’ll be piloting that with our revenue protection and customer service staff over the coming months. Obviously what we want to see, is to make the environment as safe as possible for the overwhelming majority of people who travel without making problems for others.”
The company also recently announced that it will be launching a text alert system for DART and commuter services.
This system will allow people to discreetly alert security to any ongoing assaults, thefts or other harassment on board trains.
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