Author Description

Ensuring the safety and security of customers is a core responsibility of public transit agencies. Perceptions of personal safety play a critical role in influencing travel behavior, with fear and anxiety about personal safety acting as major deterrents to transit use. TCRP Synthesis 184: Improving Transit Customer Perception of Personal Security, from TRB's Transit Cooperative Research Program, documents the current state of the practice related to customer perceptions of safety and security on bus and rail transit. Drawing from a literature review, a national survey of 35 transit providers, and in-depth case examples of five transit providers, this synthesis highlights strategies to improve customers' outlook, the effectiveness of those strategies, how the strategies are communicated to the public, and the associated change in customers' perceptions.