TTC launches anti-harassment campaign, app
Awareness campaign is accompanied by a new app that allows transit users to report incidents of sexual harassment, racism and homophobia to the transit control centre via their smartphones.

TheStar.com
Sept. 6, 2017
Ben Spurr

The Toronto Transit Commission has launched what it describes as a bold new public awareness campaign targeting sexual harassment, racism, homophobia and other troubling behaviour on the system.

The initiative, dubbed “This Is Where...” was announced Wednesday and includes posters that will be placed on vehicles and in stations, as well as a website and social media campaign.

The launch of the awareness blitz was accompanied by the rollout of a new mobile app called SafeTTC, which will allow transit riders to use their smartphones to report harassment, safety issues and other incidents.

At a news conference at North York Centre station, TTC chair Josh Colle called the anti-harassment initiative “one of the most original and probably most important campaigns the TTC has undertaken in recent memory.”

“The TTC knows that harassment is unfortunately too common. To do nothing about it, to try and hide it, or worse, to deny it exists, is a disservice to our customers and to public safety in general,” said TTC chief customer officer Kirsten Watson.

“With this campaign, we are putting those who would harass others on notice. We know you’re out there, and your actions are unacceptable, unwelcome and are under scrutiny.”

The campaign’s posters and online material use direct language that the TTC said was taken from real-life experiences reported by transit users.

One poster is titled “This Is Where Julia was groped on her way home.”

“Julia was exhausted after a hard day’s work and fell asleep on the blue night bus,” it reads.

“She heard the announcement for her stop and awoke to find a stranger touching her. Julia felt sick. She felt violated. She wanted to scream… No one should have to experience this.”

Other posters include, “This Is Where Em and Lisa were attacked for their sexuality” and “This Is Where Savi faced violence when confronting a racist.”

Watson said the campaign is focused on all forms of unwanted behaviour, but she described sexual assault as a growing problem on the TTC. There were 55 sexual assaults reported to the transit agency during the first seven months of this year, compared to 67 in all of 2015.

As the Star reported last October, Toronto police (who keep separate statistics) received 577 reports of sexual assaults on the TTC between 2011 and 2015, a rate of almost one every three days.

Linda Frempong, the safety program co-ordinator at anti-violence against women organization Metrac, said she was impressed with the TTC’s efforts to address harassment and assault.

She said the campaign’s use of direct language was significant because people may not recognize that they have been a victim or witnessed a serious incident “if you skirt around the issue and don’t name what the issue is.”

Farrah Khan, the coordinator of Ryerson University’s Office of Sexual Violence Support and Education, said the campaign was “a good first step” but that she would have liked the TTC to have put more emphasis on witnesses’ responsibility to report.

“We don’t want to make the onus just on the person that is harmed,” she said.

The SafeTTC app was developed by a Massachusetts-based company called Elerts, which has supplied similar products to transportation agencies in Atlanta, Boston and San Francisco.

According to the TTC, the app provides transit riders with a “quick and discreet” way to send photos or descriptions of incidents to the agency’s transit control centre. TTC staff will then assess the seriousness of the issue and, if necessary, respond by dispatching transit enforcement officers or contacting the police.

All TTC subway stations are wifi-enabled, but coverage doesn’t extend into subway tunnels. The TTC said if riders try to use the app to report an incident while they’re out of range, the app will store the report and send it as soon as they connect to the network.

In May, an American transit user sued Elerts and San Francisco’s Bay Area Rapid Transit agency for allegedly using that city’s version of the app to improperly collect passengers’ personal information. BART and Elerts have denied wrongdoing.

Colle said the SafeTTC app shouldn’t raise any privacy concerns for Toronto riders.

“You can turn your location services off, you can just not use the app at all,” he said.

The TTC said the app and the awareness campaign together cost between $600,000 and $700,000.