Secretary of State for Transport Justine Greening recently launched a pioneering £1.2m Command Centre dedicated to tackling crime and anti-social behaviour on the West Midlands transport network.
The Safer Travel Command Centre in Birmingham is the first in the UK to have officers from a regional police force and British Transport Police permanently based together.
Equipped with the latest digital technology, staff will use 50 high definition screens to monitor images beamed live from more than 800 CCTV cameras covering the region’s bus, rail and tram network.
The Command Centre will also serve as a headquarters for up to 79 officers and staff from the Safer Travel Partnership, a dedicated task force that has helped cut offences on the network by more than 65 per cent over the last five years.
The Partnership, which includes West Midlands Police, transport authority Centro, bus operator National Express and more recently British Transport Police, stages hundreds of operations each year to deter and combat crime and anti-social behaviour on the transport network.
Ms Greening said: “Crime on buses and trains is already falling but state of the art facilities like this will help to further increase safety on our public transport system.
“The excellent work being done here in the West Midlands shows what can be achieved when operators and the police work together and I congratulate all those involved in getting this new command centre up and running.”
