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38
agencies in their states. Although ACE, a case study agency, Again using a five-point scale, agencies were given a list
is part of the San Francisco Bay Area Tier I, it competes of the most common purposes of a video surveillance sys-
for funds in that group ($19,873,038 in FY 2010) with much tem and asked to rate from most effective to least effective
larger, higher profile agencies in the Bay Area's Regional whether they believed this goal was met on their system.
Transit Security Working Group. All other case study agen- Table 11 indicates the number of times an agency listed a
cies are designated as Tier II. reason as most effective and the number of times it was rated
as least effective.
Funding issues explored by this synthesis centered on
purchase. The synthesis did not pursue costs and issues
pertaining to the operation or maintenance of surveillance TABLE 11
cameras, including the related costs of hardware or software MOST/LEAST EFFECTIVE USE OF VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
that are required to maintain the surveillance system in an Reason Most Effective Least Effective
operational state. These costs are considerable and insuf-
Crime Prevention/ 7 2
ficient maintenance of an existing surveillance system can Vandalism
contribute to negative publicity about an agency and may Fare Collection/Dispute 4 4
influence how claims of loss or injury are adjudicated either Mediation
by internal claims officers or by courts. Technical studies of Other Complaint 7 0
the actual operations of surveillance systems by rail agen- Resolution
cies might assist them in determining whether their initial Accident Investigation 11 0
purchases are being supported internally by policies and
Employee Monitoring 0 0
procedures that maintain the equipment properly. These
Other 1 1
studies might also consider how internal decisions impact
the effectiveness of the video surveillance system and the
transit system overall. The perceived effectiveness of a video surveillance sys-
tem can depend on a number of administrative issues beyond
purchase, installation, and maintenance of the equipment
PERCEIVED EFFECTIVENESS OF VIDEO itself. Transit systems need to address many operational
SURVEILLANCE issues when considering upgrading an existing surveillance
system or installing a new one. Survey respondents provided
Decisions about where to install cameras are influenced by information on how a number of these are addressed, includ-
an agency's goals, available funding, and, sometimes, con- ing policies on monitoring, recording, and archiving images,
cerns of the political entity to which the agency is linked. and whether patrons and/or employees are notified of the
Intertwined in each or all of these decisions is the perceived presence of video surveillance technology.
effectiveness of the surveillance network. Although effec-
tiveness might be difficult to define in the context of these
overlapping but possibly contradictory goals, agencies were MONITORING VIDEO CAMERAS--WHEN AND BY WHOM
asked to indicate how effective their surveillance systems
were in achieving a number of goals. The two major reasons As the number of cameras increases, questions have arisen
for employing video surveillance monitoring of locations as to whether they will be monitored in real time (some-
were for crime/vandalism prevention and accident investi- one watching the cameras as things are happening) or
gation. Respondents could select as many or as few of the will be viewed after the fact (looking at images after an
choices that pertained to their agency (Table 10) incident occurred). A related decision is who will monitor
the cameras and for what hours whoever is assigned will
TABLE 10 view them.
REASONS FOR EMPLOYING VIDEO SURVEILLANCE
The times that video cameras are monitored differed
Reason No.
considerably. Twenty-two agencies indicated their cameras
Crime/Vandalism Prevention 39 were monitored at all times (24 hours a day, 7 days a week),
Fare Collection View/Dispute Mediation 20 and six reported that cameras were never monitored. Eight
Other Complaint Resolution 32 responded that cameras were viewed only during hours of
Accident Investigation 39 transit operations, while 11 indicated they used a configura-
tion that was not easily summarized but met their agencies'
Employee Monitoring 18
needs (Table 12).
Other 10
