Huron Shores Area Transit hopes security cameras on its buses and an updated Passenger Courtesy, Conduct & Safety policy will improve passenger and driver safety.
Transit Coordinator Susan Mills believes everyone is a little concerned about their safety.
“We are aware that we’re living in a different world than we were twenty or thirty years ago, and we’ve taken steps to make sure that our passengers are safe and dissuade some troublemakers from making trouble,” explained Mills.
Mills says there’s a camera on each bus.
“There’s one on each bus, and it’s trained on the passenger compartment area. When I was consulting with some other transit systems, they said that even just having those security cameras does dissuade a lot of bad behaviour,” Mills added.
Huron Shores Area Transit will keep the recording for seven days before the system automatically records over it.
Mills says if an incident requires action, officials can download the recording for police or the Municipality of Lambton Shores.
Mills says that prompted officials to consider the behavioural expectations of passengers. He listed not taking up a seat with bags or personal belongings, being polite to each other, not smoking or drinking, and not bringing something dangerous, like a propane tank, on the bus.
Before installing the cameras, Mills says the service never had a problem, but it wants to be proactive.
More information can be found at HuronShoresAreaTransit.ca.