Lack of data on transit violence amounts to 'blanket of ignorance': Researcher

Canada needs standardized data on violence on transit systems to help tackle issues ranging from a lack of mental health supports to eroding public trust, say researchers, citing the recent stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy at a Toronto station as the latest example of random attacks on commuters.

Canada needs standardized data on violence on transit systems to help tackle issues ranging from a lack of mental health supports to eroding public trust, say researchers, citing the recent stabbing death of a 16-year-old boy at a Toronto station as the latest example of random attacks on commuters.

Prof. Murtaza Haider, director of research at the Urban Analytics Institute of Toronto Metropolitan University, said the public should have easy access to such information.

Haider collected data on all violent incidents from the Toronto Police Service between January 2014 and June 2022 and said his recent analysis showed 7,306 incidents were reported on the city's transit system during that time.

He noted a sharp spike in violent crime, mostly at stations, which are operated by the Toronto Transit Commission.

In February 2021, nearly 12 violent incidents were reported per one million riders, compared with two incidents for the same number of riders in 2019, Haider said.

"My concern is that I don't even see transit authorities reporting such data regularly," he said, extending that concern to public transit agencies across the country.

Data is one way that transit agencies and experts are trying to come up with solutions to violence that has reached "crisis levels," according to comments by the head of the Amalgamated Transit Union Canada in January.