As part of an ongoing joint initiative between Nexus and the Northumbria Police, a recent community engagement exercise took place on the Tyne and Wear Metro to give public reassurance whilst travelling during the evening. This is just the latest campaign on the Metro as they seek to improve safety for all passengers on the network.
Unlike the plain clothed exercise we reported on recently this was very much a high visibility exercise with patrols at Metro stations across South Tyneside to engage with passengers and deal with issues of fare evasion and anti-social behaviour. In total 120 people were issued with penalty fares during the four hour operation and one person was arrested on an outstanding warrant for motoring offence after they were stopped by the Police for fare evasion.
Martin Kearney, new Chief Operating Officer at Nexus, was on the patrols and commented: “This was an excellent operation by our staff and the police as we step up our efforts to keep the Metro system safe and secure for passengers. I was able to join the patrols and saw the great work that is being done to provide community assurance on the network. Overall crime on Metro is low but we continue to work hard with the police to address anti-social behaviour and fare evasion.”
Chief Inspector Nicole Wearing added: “This highly-visible operation was all about tackling anti-social behaviour both on the Metro trains themselves but also in hotspots where groups of people gather near the stations. We know the significant effect that anti-social behaviour can have on the communities we serve, particularly on the most vulnerable who can be made to feel intimidated or frightened in their own home or whilst going about their everyday life. We want to reassure those people that our officers work closely with Nexus every single day to tackle disorder on the Metro, as well as groups behaving in an unacceptable and anti-social manner in and around our stations. Operation Carousel was not a one-off, and we will continue to take swift and robust action against anybody who brings misery to residents and behaves in an anti-social manner.”