Security on Buses and Trains

Abstract Public transit systems in the United States facilitate trade, business, and tourism, and buses and trains provide transportation for about 30 million riders each workday in large metropolitan areas, small cities, and rural places. For transit dependents, older adults, and those with mobility limitations, public transit provides a critical lifeline to work, shopping, healthcare, and socialization. Unlike aviation security, which was subject to mandated federal reform following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, security reforms on public transit have been ad hoc, as the nation's several hundred transit systems are locally owned and controlled and subject only to federal oversight. During the last two years, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have issued warnings that extremists may attack public transit in the U.S. like they did on buses and tubes in London in July, 2005. Public transit is attractive to extremists for terror attacks—between 1991 and 2001, 42 percent of terror attacks worldwide were made on rail systems or buses—because the systems are located in central places, attract large crowds, and provide unrestricted access to all. To date, most of the federal antiterror funding for public transit has been spent on security awareness for front-line employees and first responders and incident management training. This article performs a literature review of past research and provides recommendations on needed research on technological innovations to prevent and thwart attacks, particularly those that begin to physically and technologically “close” public transit systems and reduce unrestricted access.