page_title: Toronto Transit Commission
section_title: Safety programs
hierarchical_section_title: Toronto Transit Commission / Safety / Safety programs
caption_attribution_description: English: Glencairn TTC subway station in Toronto
context_page_description: The Toronto Transit Commission is the public transport agency that operates bus, subway, streetcar, and paratransit services in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It is the oldest and largest of the urban transit service providers in the Greater Toronto Area, with numerous connections to systems serving its surrounding municipalities.
  Established as the Toronto Transportation Commission in 1921, the TTC owns and operates four rapid transit lines with 75 stations, over 149 bus routes, and 11 streetcar lines. On an average weekday in 2019, 1.69 million passengers made 2.76 million unlinked trips on the TTC, with the number of trips about evenly divided between the subways and buses and streetcars. The TTC also operates door-to-door paratransit service for the elderly and disabled, known as Wheel-Trans.
  The TTC is the most heavily used urban mass transit system in Canada and the third largest in North America, after the New York City Transit Authority and Mexico City Metro.
context_section_description: Safety features provided by the TTC include:
  Request Stop: all passengers travelling alone on surface routes (9 pm – 5 am, excluding streetcar routes) can ask the driver to stop at points between bus stops. The program started in 1991, due in part to the activities of serial rapist and killer Paul Bernardo. On October 13, 2011, after many requests from the public and, finally, a letter by LGBTQ rights group Queer Ontario, the TTC announced that it would make the Request Stop Program available to all passengers in need; from 1991 to 2011, the program was only available to women.
  Designated Waiting Areas (DWA) on rapid transit platforms: these are well-lit, have intercoms, are monitored by security cameras, and are near the location where the guard car stops.
  Toronto Paramedics: stationed at key locations within the subway system during the morning and evening rush to assist with medical emergencies and provide a faster emergency response. This also reduces delays on the rapid transit system.
  Emergency Power Cut stations: indicated by a blue beacon and located on both ends of all rapid transit platforms with a PAX telephone that can be used contact the Transit Control Centre's emergency line (3555).
  Yellow Emergency Alarm (formerly "Passenger Assistance Alarm"): yellow strips on all subway and RT cars since 1977 and on the Flexity Outlook streetcars since their introduction in 2014.
  Emergency stopping mechanisms (Passenger/Guard Emergency Valve or PGEV): on the T1 trains and Line 3 Scarborough trains (except for the Toronto Rocket subway trains, which use a two-way intercom for passenger communication with the train crew as with the Flexity streetcars)
  Approximately 12,000 cameras monitoring activities at subway stations and on buses, streetcars and Toronto Rocket subway trains.
  Underground Alert messages: displayed on the subway platform video screens to notify passengers about criminals.
  TTC Transit Enforcement Unit: consisting of fare inspectors and special constables
caption: A designated waiting area (DWA) at Glencairn station. DWAs are well-lit waiting areas that are monitored, have intercoms, and are situated near the location where the guard car stops.
exif: {"Image Make": "Panasonic", "Image Model": "DMC-LZ7", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.0", "Image DateTime": "2014:08:06 15:06:27", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "418", "Image PrintIM": "[80, 114, 105, 110, 116, 73, 77, 0, 48, 50, 53, 48, 0, 0, 14, 0, 1, 0, 22, 0, ... ]", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "8084", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "7326", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/100", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "100", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:08:06 15:06:27", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:08:06 15:06:27", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire, compulsory flash mode", "EXIF FocalLength": "61/10", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1600", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1200", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "7702", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "0", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "37", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Soft", "EXIF Sharpness": "Soft"}