Violence against transit workers in Stockholm’s metro

Abstract

While transit safety affects public transportation usage, which is fundamental for sustainability, there is limited research on the safety of transit workers in rail-bound systems. This article contributes to the field by reporting the nature of violence against personnel in relation to those against passengers in Stockholm’s metro system from 2019 to 2023, using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and a logistic regression model. Findings show that violence against security guards tops the list, closely followed by threats directed towards staff members, indicative of daily conflicts that most often take place in the evenings (between 8 pm and 1 am) and especially at weekends. Violence against personnel is concentrated at a few stations, with 10 % of stations accounting for 43 % of incidents, some in central areas. Compared to passengers, stations in deprived neighbourhoods experience higher levels of violence against workers. The article concludes with recommendations for improving transit worker safety and suggestions for future research.