THEFT PREVENTION IN TRAINS

Ever since the introduction of the TGV, the train has come up as a viable alternative to airplanes and cars for travel inside Europe. Now, safety is endangering this viability. His blog will focus on one component of safety: theft.

Background

Since ‘year and day’ some pickpockets specialize in travel. On some international trains the incidence has become such that it starts to affect the image of trains as a safe method of transportation. Amazingly enough, train companies are not taking effective measures at all beyond emitting one of those barely distinguishable announcements that disappear among the other audible clutter of the repetitive announcements about gate changes and delays.

Analysis
Let’s first examine some of the considerations for the pickpockets. There are several modus operandi of these immoral craftsman: the typical pick pocketing in a crowd on a train station does not differ significantly from the same in a busy shopping street. There are is, however, also methods of thievery particular to trains: the thief buys a ticket for a short stretch of an international train – preferably an international train with plenty of valuable luggage – steals something on the stretch and gets off at the next station. Before the traveller realizes he has been robbed, the thief has already de-boarded, making pursuit effectively impossible. One business man from India had his wedding anniversary trip to Europe spoiled that way, loosing significant money in the process.

This method has several disadvantages for the criminal: first of all, he needs to buy a ticket. Even when falsified, it still costs time and is a hassle. More importantly though, the method is an inefficiënt one. He needs to travel from A to B, and during that time he needs to be successful and he has only one chance in that time period.

So an’ improved’ scenario was developed, where our subject boards a train during a stop-over. Cologne is famous for this, since e.g. the ICE from Basel to Amsterdam stops here for 14 minutes. That provides for sufficient opportunity to look for interesting victims but is also an efficient spending of his time, because 15 minutes later he is available again to check out the next train, instead of being kept hostage in hostile territory for half an hour to the next station.

In a perfected variant, an accomplice ‘works the Platform’ . The latter draws the attention of a traveler through the window, while the ‘inside man’ snatches away a suitcase or a laptop. One observed technique is that the accomplice asks for the departure time of the train. The average traveller is willing to help, if not perplexed by the stupidity of the question. Within no time the inside man has disappeared with the booty.

Train company reactions
Personally I have observed how a traveller was in pursuit of another man,who was getting out of the train in Frankfurt, yelling “that is my money!” The person leaving was caught in the exit, and two conductors were present. They refused to intervene, did not call for the police, and the accused thief just left the train claiming he did not have the money. Later I heard that the conductors did not want to delay the departure of the train. The traveller claimed to have lost 300 euro.

In another instance, a ‘gentlemen’ boarded the train in Cologne, apparently speaking into a cell phone, lingering around the first ‘hallway’ part of the compartment. Suddenly, a lady yelled to him, and within 10 seconds he was running down the steps outside. The lady had seen him getting a backpack while another man had been distracting another traveller.

When this story was shared with the train conductor, the response was one of ‘scripted customer service’ referring to the announcement and the impossibility for the train company to protect every train. However, “the signal will be reported to headquarters.” The coffee lady was more honest and indicated that the reports had been sent to ‘Berlin’ numerous times,but nothing happened that she could see.

Countermeasures
There are also other – more fruitful – options for the train company to react:

• Adjust any (local) police regulations or laws that 3 times presence in a train without a ticket within a certain time period means jail time.
• In case of the accusation of theft, like in the Frankfurt example above, the conductors hold the accused, transfer him to the police – which have a station at the ‘Hauptbahnhof’ anyway – and take care of the luggage for the accuser who remains back to press charges. Or, in a scenario that is improbable in the current legal environment, take his statement in the moving train and emit it to the police at the point of departure. My prediction is that the average train traveller will gladly accept the consequential delay if it is explained properly.
• Just as a thief can identify an international train remaining for a longer period in the same place by using the train schedule, so can the police. The latter has an additional aide of the reports of theft. When security personnel are stationed at that time on the platform, they can use several compatible techniques:
  • Use camera’s to monitor the platforms. Anybody running away is identified as suspicious, and pictures of that person are provided to the security personnel. In no time they will know how the suspects look like.
  • Board the train and ask for tickets of those who are not seated yet but hanging around in the aisle
  • Ask the same for persons leaving a train after the first ‘wave’ of passengers deboarding
  • Position security personnel at the steps leaving the platform, and stop anybody running away.

Yes, these countermeasures are not extensive, will not cover all instances and are not the end all. However in such a way the train company picks up it’s societal responsibility, will reduce theft on trains and improve the puplic perception of train safety. And the efficiency of thieves is diminished significantly and we hit them where it hurts them the most: in their pocket.

 (Originally posted February 2, 2014)

Update April 20, 2015: On April 10, 2015, I witnessed that a pickpocket was apprehended after a young woman vehemently hung on his arms preventing him to de-board. Fortunately, conductors waited for the police. The delay was only 10 minutes. Even though I missed my connection, it was well worth it.