Southern bucks regional trend with railway crime figures

Southern’s figures have bucked the trend as total crime figures for London and the South of England over the same period rose slightly by 0.78 per cent.

In the 12 months to April, overall crimes reported have fallen from 4,679 incidents in 2012/13 to 4,294 in 2013/14 – a reduction of 385.

Southern’s head of revenue protection and security, Stella Morris said: “Crime continues to fall every year on the Southern network which is a testament to the efforts of BTP, our own staff and the investment we have made in making our stations and trains much safer places to be.

“We are particularly pleased that anti-social crime has fallen by well over 14 per cent. This kind of crime is where we can make the biggest impact and the work of our Safer Travel Team with its 32 Rail Neighbourhood Officers has contributed hugely to this reduction.”

Some 169 million passenger journeys are made on Southern each year, so there is just one crime committed for every 39,000 journeys, making the chances of becoming a victim of crime on the Southern network very slim.

Ms Morris added: “The reduction in crime is encouraging, but we know there is still much work to do and we will continue to work closely with BTP on reducing crime on our network even further.”