Lethbridge Transit installs security cameras on buses
The City of Lethbridge is ramping up its safety measures for Transit, Access-A-Ride, and school bus drivers and riders. Beginning next Monday, video surveillance cameras will be monitoring activity on all City buses in an effort to deter crime and curb vandalism.
Transit manager Conrad Westerson said there have been a number of incidents over the past few years, including two or three driver assaults in the past six months.
“This is for the safety and security of our drivers as well as the safety and security of our passengers,” said Westerson. “We want to make sure if there is an incident that we have a record of it, and we can use that record to assist with any prosecutions.”
The cameras have already been installed on the inside and outside of all Transit vehicles. They will become active on Monday, and begin recording whenever the bus is started. There are 11 cameras installed on Transit buses and eight on Access-A-Ride vehicles.
Each day, the data is recorded onto a digital recorder on the bus and transferred wirelessly to a secure server when the bus returns to the Transit building. If there are no incidents, the data is erased after one month.
The new system adheres to Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act and Regulations (FOIPP), as well as the City of Lethbridge surveillance policy. Video surveillance is prevalent in many other transit centres, Westerson said, and he doesn’t anticipate any privacy concerns from the public.
“We’ve gone through a great deal of effort to ensure we meet all of the FOIPP requirements that have been identified to us,” he said. “There’s nobody sitting and watching these cameras on a daily basis. We only pull the data as required if and when there is an incident, and will only look at the data that’s pertinent to that incident.”
The City received provincial GreenTRIP funds and Federal Gas Tax funding to cover about 80 per cent ($515,000) of the total $650,000 cost. The City’s school bus replacement fund covered the remaining $135,000.
For more information on the new system, visit www.lethbridge.ca.
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