March 30--Metra has installed its first rail car cameras as a pilot to determine whether trains can benefit from the surveillance technology.
Eleven cameras were installed a few weeks ago on a rail car along the Metra Electric Line, which connects Millennium Station in downtown Chicago with the city's south suburbs, Metra spokeswoman Wendy Abrams said. The agency already has outward-facing cameras installed on the front of each of its locomotives, she said, and has plans to begin researching and pricing cameras for engineers' compartments in all locomotives and cab cars in 2016.
"We definitely know cameras can act as a deterrent to crime, and we know most customers would feel safer and more comfortable with them," Abrams said. "It's really just a matter of funding at this point. From our perspective, the safety of our customers is the highest priority."
The newly installed cameras will gather data through May, Abrams said. The test results should help identify how Metra can best use camera technology, and whether Metra should buy more cameras for the inside of all its passenger rail cars in 2017, if funding becomes available.
Metra bought the 11 test cameras with operating funds from its 2016 budget, Abrams said. The agency recently applied for a U.S. Department of Homeland Security grant to buy cameras for as many as all 1,028 of its passenger rail cars.
The test cameras will record activity on the rail car, but Metra doesn't intend to archive the footage, Abrams said. Should Metra obtain funding for cameras inside all rail cars, however, those cameras ideally would provide a live feed to Metra police.
The Chicago Transit Authority first began using rail car cameras in 2010 when newer, more modern cars with live feed cameras hit the tracks, CTA spokeswoman Catherine Hosinski said. In January, CTA officials credited the cameras with decreasing the crime rate on its buses and trains in 2015. Officials noted that 256 people were arrested for crimes on CTA property after their "images were caught on CTA cameras," an 8 percent increase from 2014.
The cameras were installed in the Metra Electric Line rail car because the line's rail cars have the newest equipment and are prewired for camera technology, officials said.
