Safety and emergency management in public transport

Incidents of violence and property damage at stops and in vehicles can make passengers feel uncomfortable or even avoid public transport altogether. This is especially true at night and in times of low frequency. But also transport, service and security service employees of transport companies can be involved in critical situations. The STUVA has successfully coordinated the InREAKT project over the last three years, developing new technical approaches to increase safety and improve emergency management in public transport.

When passengers or employees of transport companies get into critical situations such as violent conflicts or medical emergencies, effective emergency management in public transport is very important. Numerous new approaches were pursued in the project InREAKT, which was funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in the last three years. The core idea is the IT-supported process of a help reaction chain, which consists of the following elements:

• Recognizing a needy person,
• Reporting a safety-critical situation to the control center,
• Communicating reaction forces,
• Intervene at the event location.

The detection takes place in InREAKT via an optical sensor system, which can support the effectiveness of video surveillance by preselecting relevant scenes. Through a depth-image camera an abstract images is being created, that do not allow any conclusions about age, gender, ethnicity, etc. of the person (fig. 1). Since this system also does not store data, it meets high data protection requirements. Hauptaufgabe der STUVA war es, die Abläufe des Notfall-Managements bei Verkehrsunternehmen zu optimieren und auf die technischen Systeme von InREAKT abzustimmen. In diesem Zusammenhang wurden auch Methoden entwickelt, um Wissen über die Bearbeitung von Notfällen im ÖPNV einfacher als bislang an neue Mitarbeiter in der Leitstelle weiterzugeben. This is not only important for a rapid assistance to those affected, but also to keep the driving as smoothly as possible. For this purpose, the innovative approach was followed to integrate recommendations for action in a special software for security control centers (fig. 2). Among other things, this can be used to simply query available security and service personnel who are then scheduled to the event location. Communication can be either conventional via mobile phone or via messenger in a specially designed InREAKT security app for smartphones.

Successful project completion
In September 2016, the final conference for the project InREAKT took place at practice partner Verkehrsbetriebe Karlsruhe (VBK) (fig. 3). In addition to interesting results presentations, participants were introduced to the so-called demonstrator. It is a light rail vehicle incorporating all major new technical developments: optical and acoustic sensors, safety apps for passengers and employees of transport companies, and a security control center workplace. In addition, a novel and very reasonably priced sensor technology for detecting vandalism at car park furniture was presented. The functionality of all individual systems and their interaction could be impressively demonstrated on the basis of realistic everyday situations. Bereits während der Projektlaufzeit wurden durch die STUVA mehrere Workshops veranstaltet, um Zwischenergebnisse mit in der Praxis tätigen Experten von Verkehrsunternehmen zu diskutieren und neue Anregungen einzuholen. Themen waren „Neue Wege datenschutzgerechter Videoüberwachung“ und „Neue Technologien zur Bewältigung sicherheitsrelevanter Vorfälle“. Entsprechende Tagungsbände sind kostenlos online abrufbar unter: www.inreakt.de

• 06.07.2017 InREAKT honored as a flagship project for intelligent mobility