Bodycams de-escalate and prevent incidents for public transport officials

The challenge: safety for travelers and frontline professionals working in public transport

HTM employees have a lot of experience with interacting with the travelling public. Frontline professionals working in public transport are often engaging with tense, angry or aggressive passengers during their daily duties. Their actions are constantly focused on de-esclating such incidents. Furthermore, cameras installed in trams and buses often fail to capture the complete interaction, resulting in limited usable evidence for prosecution in the case of escalations.

Frontline professionals in many sectors, from police, to fire brigades, to private security and local law enforcement found was that bodycam solutions help address these issues. Through prevention and de-escalation, as well as the clear evidence bodycams gather, the safety of frontline professionals can be properly addressed.  They further wanted to increase the feelings of safety for all passengers, leading them to implement a bodycam solution. The public transportation company also needed a tool that was secure and GDPR compliant.

The solution: bodycams to de-escalate and prevent incidents

The implementation of a ZEPCAM T2+ bodycam solution has already resulted in clear benefits, for both the organisation and frontline staff. The bodycams provide:

• Excellent video footage with clear audio
• Footage quality that is good even in darker areas and with reflections from bus and tram windows
• Footage that includes a minute of pre-recording, allowing for better and more complete evidence collection
• A tool that can help protect frontline staff by de-escalating and preventing incidents, which already occurred several times in the first month
• An authority tool with which public transport officials can record evidence whenever necessary

In training and in the field HTM employees use the ZEPCAM T2+ bodycam as a tool alongside the tactics of de-escalation they know very well. The bodycams offer frontline professionals the chance to influence an escalating situation in a positive way. They do this by:

• Clearly mentioning the presence of the ZEPCAM T2+ bodycam
• Warning travelers of activation when they feel unsafe, or when they see the need to activate the bodycam
• Mentioning that the bodycam is now recording, and has recorded the past minute of the interaction through its pre-recording function
• Stopping the recording and clearly stating this when a situation returns to a normal interaction, in order to show that the return to normalcy is appreciated by frontline staff

By having bodycams, the frontline professionals working for HTM can improve interactions with the public. When people know they are being filmed, or if they are warned that a bodycam is about to start recording, they tend to be more respectful and calm towards staff. This, alongside the various warnings, allow public transport officials to influence an escalating situation in a positive way.

>>ZEPCAM Bodycam Solutions for Public Transport