TTC delays launch of anti-harassment app

The "Safe TTC" app will allow passengers to report harassment, assault, vandalism, and other offences.

Thestar.com
March 29, 2017
By Ben Spurr

The TTC has delayed the launch of a smartphone app that would allow passengers to report harassment and other unwanted behaviour on the transit system.

The TTC told the Star last July that it was working on the app, and at the time the agency had planned to release it in late 2016 or early this year. But according to TTC spokesperson Susan Sperling the app, which has been dubbed “Safe TTC,” now won’t be introduced until the fall. She didn’t provide a precise date.

Asked why it’s been delayed, Sperling said the agency is performing “extensive testing and training … to ensure that proper standard operating procedures are in place when the app is released.”

“We want to do this right,” she said.

The app is an “off-the-shelf” product developed by a Massachusetts-based company called Elerts. According to the company’s website, its products are used by transit agencies in several U.S. cities including San Francisco, Dallas, Charlotte, and Boston. The TTC is spending $440,000 on its version.

The Elerts site says that the “transit threat” apps allow riders to take video or photos of an incident and immediately relay them, along with a written incident description, to transit authorities. The app automatically disables the smartphone’s flash so that pictures can be taken surreptitiously, and also maps the location of the offence using GPS. The authorities can decide whether to respond immediately or simply log the problem.

Sperling said the TTC’s version will have most of those features, but could be slightly modified. The app will enable passengers to report several types of behaviour, including vandalism, Sperling said, but the awareness campaign that the TTC will launch to accompany it will focus on harassment and assault of all kinds.

In the past, the TTC has touted the app as one of the tools it will use to step up its fight against sexual harassment and assault, both of which are a frequent occurrence on the transit system, which carries nearly 2 million passengers each day.

According to TTC statistics, there were 85 sexual assaults reported to the agency last year, and 12 in the first two months of the year.

Numbers reported to the police are higher. According to documents obtained by the Star through a freedom of information request last year, there were 577 reports of sexual assault on TTC property or vehicles between 2011 and 2015, the equivalent of almost one every three days.

Farrah Khan, the co-ordinator for Ryerson University’s Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education, said “it’s great” that the TTC is working on an app, but she stressed that its ability to combat sexual harassment and violence is limited.

“It puts a lot of onus on the individual and not on the community,” she said. “It’s dependent also on the idea that everybody has a phone that can download their app, and there’s room on their phone to do that … So people who don’t have that are going to be challenged.”

Khan said she was surprised that the TTC doesn’t already have an anti-sexual harassment awareness campaign in place. She said that an effective one would be aimed at potential perpetrators, people who are at risk, and bystanders.

“Too often our students will come to us and say, I was in a crowded streetcar, I was in a crowded subway, and this person yelled this out at me or grabbed me this way, and lots of people saw, and why didn’t anybody do anything?” she said.

Asked why the TTC doesn’t currently have an anti-sexual harassment campaign, Sperling said the campaign the agency is planning for the fall is closely tied to the app and can’t be launched separately.

She said the agency takes the issue seriously however, which is why it has instituted measures like the designated waiting area on subway platforms, the Request Stop program, and emergency alarms on subways and new streetcars.

She acknowledged that the Safe TTC app is not a panacea for the problem. “No app is not going to end sexual assault and harassment,” she said, “but it is going to assist customers with reporting it so that the TTC and police can continue to tackle this incredibly serious issue.”