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This research paper examines how crime concentrates and is potentially specialized within and around the public transport system. It begins by defining public transport for the purposes of this discussion and outlines why this is an area of importance. It also discusses some of the reasons why there is a paucity of evidence into crime on public transport and the unique challenges this system poses for identifying and analyzing concentrations of crime. It describes how public transport networks provide a number of unique settings (places and times) across which crime and disorder can occur. These include in and around stations and stops and on board moving vehicles. The public transport network brings increased accessibility to places, and this creates distinctive patterns of offending. This research paper reviews the international evidence for the manifestations of crime in these situations and considers the theoretical reasons and explanations for such events and the extent to which these may be specialized. It then examines the prevention opportunities offered by the crime concentrations and specializations identified, and some emerging trends and future avenues for research.
This research paper considers crime and disorder on public transport, the ways in which it concentrates and the extent to which it is specialized. It begins by defining public transport for the purposes of this discussion, and emphasizes the importance of reducing crime and disorder and associated fears of personal security on the public transport network. It will then review the empirical evidence for the concentrations and specializations of crime and disorder evident on public transport systems, and assess the theoretical perspectives that help explain these patterns. It will describe how the public transport system provides unique settings (places and times) that subsequently create distinctive crime patterns that encompass a variety of changing environments. These include stations, stops, and interchanges and “en route” and “line of route” offenses, and therefore, a description is given of how the public transport network serves settings that incorporate both static and dynamic situations of crime and disorder (Newton 2005). This research paper will explore how concentrations of crime manifest across each of these settings and highlight some of the unique challenges faced when attempting to explain and prevent crime on the public transport network. It will conclude by discussing some emerging trends and avenues for further research in this field.
For the purposes of this research paper, the term public transport is used to capture what North American readers may think of as “public transit,” “mass transit,” “rapid transit,” or “public transportation” systems. There is no clear consensus of a definition of public transport, and therefore the following are adopted as forming key components of the public transport system:
- Public transport is used to describe a system used by the public, often a means of transporting passengers in mass numbers, generally a for-hire system that occurs across a fixed route or line.
- It consists of a range of transport modes, including railway (railroads, light rail, metro/ subway/underground railway, high-speed rail, and intercity rail), buses, trolleybuses, and trams; ferries; coaches; airlines; water taxis, gondolas; and pedicabs.
- Bicycle hire schemes are becoming more popular in urban areas and could be included as part of the public transport system although they are not discussed here.
- In some regions “collective transport” is also considered as a form of public transport, for example, a minibus or fixed group taxi (e.g., South America and Russia).
- “Paratransit” is an expression sometimes used in areas of low demand and for people who need a door-to-door service.
- There are distinctions between multimodal and intermodal systems: a multimodal system accommodates different modes of transport, whereas an intermodal system ensures strategic connections between different modes.
- There is a debate as to whether or not taxis are part of the public transport system although they are not discussed within the context of this research paper.
Why Examine And Reduce Crime And Disorder On Public Transport?
There are a number of reasons why understanding and preventing crime on public transport should be of interest. Firstly, public transport has an important role to play in reducing social exclusion, by providing access to facilities such as work, health, leisure, and employment. In Great Britain, for example, the 2011 National Travel Survey estimated that about one quarter of households do not have access to a car. There are also obvious environmental benefits in promoting public transport as a means of sustainable travel, and hence, the use of public transport may be expected to grow over time rather than decrease. A number of surveys have identified that fear of crime and personal security is a major inhibiting factor to the use of public transport, second only in many surveys to reliability and accessibility. Indeed, a report in the UK by the then Department for Environment, Transport and the Region (DETR) suggested that reducing fear of crime could increase patronage by 3 % at peak and 10 % at off peak times (Newton 2004). One of the clear messages from this is the significance of making passengers actually feel safe, and Smith and Clarke (2000) suggest this should be a mandate shared across all transport systems.
It is evident in the literature concerned with the fear of crime, however, that reducing actual levels of crime does not necessarily equate to reductions in people’s perceptions of crime risk. The factors that contribute to worries over personal security on public transport are not disparate from those associated with fear of crime outside of the transport network, and the dynamics of vulnerability on public transport include variation by gender, ethnicity, age, familiarity with, and levels of public transport usage (Yavuz and Welch 2010). However, there are some features of the public transport network that are perhaps distinctive. As will become more apparent in this research paper, the dynamic nature of the public transport system creates unique environments, through which specific modes of transport traverse, transporting potential targets and victims, on a system that passes through areas with different levels of crime risk, and therefore continuously receives different inputs and outputs over time. This creates a unique, potentially specialized, and certainly concentrated arena within which crime and disorder may occur.
Context And Scope
While the definitions of public transport alluded to earlier suggest that it is a for-hire system of mass transportation used by the public, in its broadest sense the public transport journey should actually be viewed in its entirety, what the then DETR called the “whole journey approach” (Newton 2004). This not only consists of travel on actual vehicles or different modes of transport, but when waiting at a stop, station, or interchange, and also walking to and from stops and stations at the start and end of journeys, or even potentially transferring between different modes of transport. As suggested by the DETR, negative experiences across any part of the journey might actually influence fears of personal security and change travel patterns, perhaps to the extent that passengers may stop using public transport altogether. While the notion of the whole journey approach is crucial for examining crime on the public transport journey, the majority of the limited empirical evidence is focused on the “at stop or station,” “en route,” and “line of route” offenses. Therefore, the content of this research paper will naturally focus on these situations in detail – there being a paucity of research into the walking parts of the journey. In addition, as much of the literature is focused on bus and rail travel, the scope is also limited to these two modes of transport. However, many of the concentrations and potential specialism’s identified and the theoretical concepts used to explain these can be readily applied to other parts of the public transport network and other modes of public transport vehicles. Finally, this research paper does not examine security at a wider level than crime and personal security, and therefore, terrorism is excluded from this discussion.
The Nature And Extent Of Crime On Public Transport
There is limited information available as to the extent of crime and disorder on public transport, and furthermore, discrepancies exist as to the actual levels of crime and disorder on public transport. The most likely reasons for this include the following: the multiple agencies responsible for maintaining and operating the various systems, the lack of standardized reporting and recording of crime and disorder on public transport, difficulties in analyzing the available data, the different policing and security arrangements in place across the network, and the likely levels of underreporting on the system (Newton 2004).
One of the definitive references in this area (Smith and Cornish 2006) identifies six categories of crime that are typically evident on the public transport network, these being antisocial behavior; crimes against passengers including theft, robbery, and assault; crimes against employees including assault and robbery; vandalism and graffiti; line of route crimes which are offenses along routes that cause delay or affect safety; and a final category of “other offences.” In addition, it is useful to distinguish “en route” offenses from those at stations and stops (Newton 2005). This research paper will review the empirical evidence of the concentrated nature of these six types of offenses, both in time and place. It demonstrates the spatial and topological patterns of crime evident on the public transport network, and it is contended that these are a result of the movements on the system in terms of offender and targets, and the increased accessibility it provides to the places the network serves. A question this raises is whether this leads to unique opportunities for offenders to specialize on and near to the public transport network.
There are sizeable differences in published figures regarding the extent of crime and disorder on public transport. A study in the UK by the Department for Transport (DfT 2010) suggested that during 2008–2009, there were 12 crimes per million passengers on the bus network and 13 crimes per million on the underground and over-ground services. This also indicated that the rate of offenses varies by type of crime and analysis of the 2006/2007 figures estimated that the number of offenses (per million passenger journeys) were as follows: on the rail network, 11.9 for violence against the person offenses against passengers, 4.5 against staff, and 39.1 for theft from person and robbery offenses. On the bus network, the rates were 9.0 per million passenger journeys for violence against the person offenses against passengers, 4.1 against staff, and 15.01 for theft from person and robbery offenses. By contrast, a study in Los Angeles suggested an average of 1.55 crime incidents per 100 rides (Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2002). A 1990s passenger study in England and Wales by Easton and Smith indicated 5 % of passengers had been threatened with violence and 4 % had been the victim of theft, and in Victoria in Australia, a 1990s study by Carr and Wright identified 690 crimes against persons on public transport over 12 months in the context of 300 million passenger journeys per year. While discrepancies will exist in crime rates across countries and different cities, it is suggested those found with the figures presented here are due to differences in recording and reporting practices rather than international or even national variations.
There are additional difficulties with estimating and identifying the levels and extent of crime and disorder on public transport. Levels of underreporting are unknown, and Levine, Wachs, and colleagues examined this in California in the 1980s and found figures may underestimate actual levels of crime by 25–30 times. There are clear difficulties in identifying true levels of crime and disorder on public transport, and, for reasons that are explored next, this is perhaps more problematic than the well-established levels of underreporting found in police-recorded crime figures. However, it is believed that levels of crime on public transport have, for the most part, followed the internationally declining levels of crime rates in general (Transit Cooperative Research Program 2009).
The Limited Evidence Base
There are a number of reasons why there have been limited studies into the nature of crime and disorder in public transport. These in part relate to the fragmented nature of regulation across the various systems, the number of agencies and organizations who are responsible for providing and regulating public transport services, difficulties in capturing reliable and accurate information on crime and disorder incidents, the different bodies involved in policing and the security of public transport systems, the levels of underreporting of crime and disorder on these networks, and the analytical challenges faced when attempting to investigate patterns of crime and disorder on public transport (Newton 2004). While the following examples relate to the organization of public transport in the UK, similar fragmented systems exist internationally.
An examination of public transport on the rail network in the UK reveals the wide range of organizations responsible for delivering this system nationally, these include the following:
National Rail, the Train Operating Companies who operate under Strategic Rail Franchise Agreements, Network Rail who are responsible for national infrastructure, and the Rail Safety and Security Board (set up to improve the health and safety performance of the railways). There are also some privately owned systems such as light rail (e.g., the London Docklands and the Manchester Metrolink). However, on the rail network there is a consistent set of information collated on crime and disorder as the British Transport Police (BTP) are responsible for policing the rail networks, and they provide monthly and annual figures on crime on the network (both on trains and at stations).
On the bus network, this system is more fragmented in the UK. Outside of London (which is regulated by Transport for London), the deregulation of buses which came into force in 1986 as part of the Transport Act 1985 has resulted in a number of operators who can provide commercial or subsidized services. In the large metropolitan areas, these are coordinated by the seven Passenger Transport Executives (PTEs), and outside of these areas Local Authorities regulate buses. In one of the large metropolitan areas, there were over 50 bus operators providing services, and outside of London there is no requirement to report crime incidents on buses, and this often relies on the goodwill and time of both operators and police forces. Indeed in 1998 only 19 police forces (less than 40 %) provided such information, and only 16 bus companies out of over 100 made returns on staff assaults (Newton 2004). While this information is dated, there is no evidence to suggest that the situation has improved considerably, and a key factor is that in the UK (and elsewhere) there is no statutory dedicated category for “crime on public transport” to be recorded as an incident in its own right by the police. Some operators retain the services of private security contractors to maintain safety and security on their systems which adds a further layer of incident reporting (which may or may not be passed onto the police).
A third and final complication that contributes to the paucity of evidence on crime and disorder on public transport is the unique analytical challenge that it poses, particularly when attempting to identify spatial concentrations of crime. In addition to the lack of consistent information available, the range of settings and environments in the transport network within which crime can occur presents a major analytical challenge. Examples include the following: criminal damage at a stop or station at an unknown time, graffiti or the slashing of a seat on a vehicle at both an unknown time and location as it may only be reported when a bus or train returns to the depot at the end of the day, and pocket picking that occurs as part of a passengers journey, somewhere between departure and arrival. In addition it is very difficult to pinpoint the location of a crime that occurs on a moving vehicle, although there are studies that attempt to analyze dynamic crime events (Newton 2005), for example, the development of “hot routes” or “hot lines” (Newton 2008; Tompson et al. 2009).
Theoretical Perspectives: Why And How Is Crime Concentrated On Public Transport?
The environments of the public transport networks are in some ways distinct from other areas of public space due to the locations they serve, the dynamic nature of the system, and the different inputs and outputs to it. However, there is support within the literature for adopting a number of well-established theoretical criminological perspectives to examine crime on public transport, and this research paper now adopts some of these perspectives as a framework for examining the manifestations and concentrations of crime and disorder evident on public transport. A useful starting point is to consider the problem analysis triangle (Clarke and Eck 2005) to conceptulalize patterns of crime and disorder on public transport, and three questions arise here:
- Who are the potential targets and victims, and who can act as capable guardians?
- Who are the likely offenders, and who can act as handlers to restrain the otherwise motivated offenders?
- What places and times (settings) within the public transport network create juxtapositions of offenders and victims that increase or reduce crime opportunities, and who can act as place managers for these?
Victims, Targets, And Guardians
There are a number of potential victims or targets that may experience crime and disorder on the public transport system. The most obvious of these are passengers and staff, and it is important to consider this in the context of all peripatetic staff who may work on the system. The risk to each of these varies across different sections of the transport network. For example, relative to the risk of crime for passengers during busy periods, the risk of crime is likely to be quite different for lone passengers at night and lone staff (at day or at night) who may or may not be carrying cash. There is also risk to the infrastructure of the transport system which includes criminal damage and graffiti of vehicles, stops, and stations, or damage to fixed lines (e.g., obstacles placed on routes which cause damage or obstruct routes) or even theft of copper lines (discussed later under emerging trends).
Offenders And Handlers
There is a paucity of empirical evidence about the nature of offending on public transport, in particular the characteristics of the offenders, and whether they perhaps specialize in crime committed within the public transport network. Who are the potential offenders and why they may be present at particular places and times, and do they use the public transport network as part of their journey to crime? This is an under-researched area that warrants future research as discussed at the end of this research paper. A 1990s study by Belanger, one of the few conducted on this topic, examined the extent to which public transport may facilitate the movement of criminals between areas. This study looked at the travel behavior of a sample of serious offenders across the New York City subway system and found that the distance travelled from home or anchor point did vary and that 56 % of offenders travelled within their own borough to commit crime, 29 % travelled to Manhattan from another borough, and 12 % travelled from one borough to another excluding Manhattan. This raises the question of whether the distance travelled to commit crime differs for those trips that public transport is used and those for which it is not.
Places, Times, And Place Managers?
When examining the places on the public transport network where crime might occur, it is useful to categorize these settings by the three components of the transport journey: the walking, waiting, and en route settings. There is empirical evidence that crime is concentrated at a small proportion of transport stations, stops, and hubs (Smith and Clarke 2000; Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2002; Newton 2004; Smith and Cornish 2006; Newton and Bowers 2007) and “en route” at particular sections of public transport journeys (Newton 2008; Tompson et al. 2009). These concentrations vary by both crime type and time of day, as will be discussed in more detail below. The waiting environment may also include transfer between transport modes within a transport interchange or hub, and this is perhaps distinctive from transfer between transport modes that occurs outside of transport interchanges as this may be classified as part of the walking environment. These external transfers and the walking environment more generally, for example, from point of departure to stop, or stop to place of arrival, are unlikely to be recorded as part of a public transport journey, and limited information is available on crime and disorder in these components of the public transport journey.
The above discussion has considered who are the likely targets and potential offenders on the public transport and the places, times, and situations where these are more likely to coincide. The opportunities this offers for prevention will be discussed in more detail later but include consideration of the following: who can act as capable guardians for these different targets, who may be an appropriate handler for offenders, and the importance of place management and environmental in reducing crime and disorder on the public transport system.
Crime Pattern Theory And Routine Activities
Two theoretical perspectives that can readily be applied to the public transport network are crime pattern and routine activity theories. Crime pattern theory defines people’s activity spaces in terms of three main components: nodes, paths, and edges (Clarke and Eck 2005). The term “node” is used to describe where people (both offenders and victims) travel to and from, and the idea of personal activity nodes closely resembles the ideas of a person’s routine activities. These nodes are linked by paths, which would include roads or other transport routes. Edges define the boundaries around nodes, within which people reside, work, or are routinely active in. According to crime pattern theory, crimes are likely to concentrate where offender routine activity spaces intersect with those of suitable targets of crime.
Nodes and paths are particularly relevant in the context of the public transport network, with nodes represented by rail stations and bus stops (and so on), while transport routes correspond to the paths that connect the transportation nodes. Edges may even delineate the boundaries of the public transport network, and there may be regulated and controlled entrances and exits to the system (Newton 2004). Edges can be considered the boundaries of the public transport network, but these become less geographically distinct when considering the walking component of the whole journey approach discussed earlier. Another concept that has been applied to transport nodes is the notion of risky facilities (Clarke and Eck 2005), further discussed below.
The transport network can be thought of as having the potential to shape the activity spaces (and hence the spatial and temporal concentrations) of offenders and potential targets and thus to increase the potential of crime occurring on the network. There is clear evidence, reviewed below, of crime concentrations on the network at two of the critical sections of the network, in and around stations and stops (nodes) and crime en route (paths). Moreover, the way in which the transport network influences the potential for crime is not limited to where it occurs but also what types of crimes are most likely to occur and potentially which offender specialism’s may occur in and around the system.
Crime Attractors, Crime Generators, And The Public Transport Network
A final key theoretical perspective is notion of “crime attractors,” “crime generators,” and “crime neutral” areas (Clarke and Eck 2005). A crime generator is an area that attracts large numbers of people for reasons other than to commit a crime. At particular times and places, this concentration of victims and offenders produces an unplanned opportunity for offending. Crime attractors are places that offenders visit due to knowledge of the area’s criminal opportunities, such as bars and prostitution areas, in order to commit a crime. A key question of relevance here is do places on the public transport system act as crime attractors or crime generators. Research has suggested that transport hubs can act as both attractors and generators and that this varies by crime type and by time of day (Smith and Cornish 2006).
Research by Levine and colleagues in California in the ‘1980s identified that for some crime types, for example rape, homicide, and robbery, the risk was greater when guardianship was likely to be low or where it was impeded by the design of the location (Newton 2004). Examples of this include when there were low levels of pedestrian traffic, low levels of surveillance, and many concealed areas. A study of graffiti and vandalism by Wilson and Healy in the 1980s on the rail network in New South Wales, Australia, found offenders were principally juveniles and that most damage occurs in unsupervised areas during off peak hours. Burrell (2007) highlights that violent crime on public transport tends to happen in the late evening/nighttime when there is less supervision, whereas pocket picking and purse snatching are more frequent during the rush hour. The above examples all demonstrate how transport hubs may act as attractors and or generators of crime, at different times of the day, and for different types of crime.
In order to examine these theoretical perspectives in more detail and also highlight the empirical evidence that exists as to how crime is concentrated and potentially specialized on the transport network, two of the key settings of the public transport network will now be examined in more detail: the first of these is crime in and around stops and stations, and the second is “en route” crime on a moving (and sometime stationary) vehicle.
Crime At Stops And Stations
There are a number of studies that have examined how the design of transport stations can influence levels of crime. Examples include the Paris Metro (Clarke 1996), the Metro in Washington DC (La Vigne 1997), and the metro in Gothenburg, Sweden (Ceccato et al. 2011). Similar studies have examined over ground rail stations in the country of Wales(UK) (Cozens et al. 2004). A clear finding from these studies, particularly in relation to the Washington DC example, was how unusually low crime rates (compared to other systems and local crime rates) could be explained by reference to aspects of environmental design.
In addition to the internal design of stations, there have been studies that examine the link between rail stations and their external environments or nearby surroundings. Studies in Chicago (Clarke 1996; Block and Block 2000) into street robbery in the vicinity of rapid transit stations found that street robbery is concentrated near (but not immediately outside) rapid transit stations and that robbery varied temporally and concentrated late at night (between 11:00 and 12:00 p.m., with a peak time of 2:00 a.m.). Block and Block contend that although the behavior of potential victims and offenders and the time of day and other individual features of each situation will affect risk, it is the place and the surrounding or nearby space that is crucial in bringing all these factors together in what they term the environs of rapid transit stations. A recent doctoral thesis by Herrmann (2011) who examined robbery hot spots in New York provides support for this notion, and this research demonstrated that although all identified hot spots were near subway stations, those that occurred during the daytime (3:00 p.m. peak time) were near high schools but that those occurring in the nighttime (1:00 a.m.) were not, instead being around late night businesses.
In addition to studying crime near railway stations, there have been a number of studies that have examined crime and disorder in and around bus stops and bus stations (Loukaitou-Sideris et al. 2002; Newton 2004; Newton and Bowers 2007; Vu 2009). Loukaitou-Sideris examined the link between criminal activities at bus stops and associated nearby environmental characteristics in a North American city and found that the ten bus stops with the most crime accounted for 18 % of all crimes, and although passenger levels at these stops were high, other nearby stops with high patronage exhibited little or no crime. They identified that there were an abundance of “negative” environmental factors and a general lack of “defensible space” near these high-crime bus stops, including liquor stores, bars, check cashing establishments, seedy motels, pawnshops, vacant lots/buildings, and adult book stores and movie theaters.
This is supported in the UK by Newton and Bowers (2007) who found criminal damage to bus shelters was concentrated at a small number of bus shelters. Examining the criminogenic and socioeconomic characteristics of places, they also identified that bus shelter damage was related in known and predictable ways to characteristics of local neighborhoods. Indeed shelter damage risk was higher in areas with high levels of antisocial behavior, a lack of capable guardianship, and the presence of youths. For example, they found a positive relationship between bus shelter damage and proximity to parks, children’s play areas, and schools (particularly those whose unauthorized truancy levels were above the national average), and a negative relationship with the presence of pubs and bars, nightclubs, and off-licenses (late night liquor stores).
An interesting feature of the two above studies if that some of the so-called negative environmental features found to increase crime in the US study, namely, the presence of off-licenses (liquor stores), actually reduced the risk of crime in the UK study. This finding is explained best when considering that the US research examined crimes such as assault and violence, whereas the UK study was concerned with criminal damage to bus shelters. The late night land use associated with these features increased violence and assault in one study, but actually served as a deterrent for criminal damage in another study, by increasing the number of persons in the area, whose presence therefore may have actually served as a form of guardianship against criminal damage to bus shelters. It also serves as a clear example of how spatial crime concentrations vary by type of offense and time of day.
“En Route” Crime
Few studies have examined crime that occurs while a public transport vehicle is moving, predominantly due to the analytical challenges this poses. A 1970s Home Office study by Mayhew examined damage to buses in Manchester (UK) and found that damage was greatest on buses without a conductor, more prevalent on the upper decks of the bus, and especially at the rear of the bus. On buses with a rear staircase, graffiti and vandalism was more prominent upstairs and at the front of the bus. This study concluded that a lack of supervision was an important factor in the occurrence of vandalism and graffiti on buses, supporting the idea that a lack of guardianship or place management on the transport network acts a contributory factor to criminal damage. This study considered the internal environment of a vehicle, but not the external environments it may pass through. There are, however, some studies which have examined how the external environments a moving vehicle passes through may influence crime risk on that vehicle.
Crime and disorder is concentrated on particular routes and sections of routes on the public transport network. A 1980s study by Pearlstein and Wachs examined crime on the bus network in California and concluded that only 88 out of 233 routes (less than 40 %) experienced serious incidents of crime and that crime mostly occurred on routes that traversed areas with high crime rates. They also found crime was disproportionately high during late evenings when violent crimes were more prominent and that theft and robberies were most likely during the rush hour (Newton 2005).
Additional studies, such as those by Levine and colleagues in California in the 1980s, support the notion that incidents of bus crime are highest for bus routes that pass through high-crime areas. Moreover, Newton (2008) identified that not only is bus-related crime positively correlated with levels of crime in the areas a bus traverses, and that the risk of crime on those routes that traverse high-crime areas is greater than on other routes, but furthermore that the risk propensity is heightened on routes that go through high-crime areas and have a higher numbers of stops within these areas (multiple entry and exit points). It should be noted that this risk is not just confined to the passengers and staff who travel on public transport but also to the actual infrastructure of the public transport network.
An analysis of criminal damage to vehicles using data of objects that were projected or thrown at buses (including for example rocks, stones, bricks, and eggs) also found that risk was highest to buses passing through areas that experienced high crime rates (Newton 2004). In this situation the theoretical edges or boundaries to the public transport network become more blurred, and the interaction between the internal (inside the vehicle) and external environments (that a vehicle passes through) is different to the inputs and outputs of passengers and staff to the system (which occurs at transport stops and stations or nodes). The latter can be regulated by controlling the entrance and exit points to the system (by offenders of victims), while the former cannot, and this provides an additional layer of complexity to the study of crime on the public transport system.
Crime Concentrations On Public Transport And Prevention Implications
Perhaps a key significant feature of the concentrations and potential specializations of crime and disorder that are evident is the prevention opportunities these offer. Crime and disorder has been shown to be concentrated within certain components of the public transport network, and these include along particular route sections of journeys, nearby and within certain stations and stops, and within particular parts of stations and interchanges, and these all vary by offense type and time of the day. There is also a clear interaction between the movement of vehicles and the environments through which they traverse, and regulating access to and from the system (the entry and exit points) can serve as a useful mechanism for reducing crime and disorder on the network.
The design, environment, and management of stations and stops can influence crime rates, and there is an established evidence base of strategies and measures that can be adopted to improve the design of public transport infrastructure in order to reduce crime levels (Clarke 1996; LaVigne 1997; Smith 2008; Ceccato et al. 2011) including better lighting and illumination and removing dark corners and hiding places. Furthermore, effective place management of stations (Clarke 1996), the introduction of capable guardians (Newton et al. 2004), and the use of effective handlers (Van Andel 1989) can all significantly reduce risk on the public transport network. Many aspects of the public transport network have regulated entrance and exit points that connect the internal environment of a transport journey with its external environment. These offer clear prevention opportunities but these must be contextualized within an intelligence-led or problem-solving approach (Clarke and Eck 2005), and as already demonstrated in this research paper, these differ significantly for offense type and time of the day.
The design of transport systems and the introduction of new technologies can also influence crime rates. For example, a study on the London Underground in the 1980s by Clarke and colleagues revealed that the introduction of subway slugs (foil wrapped around 10 pence coins to create fake 50 pence coins) became widespread as new automated vending machines were introduced. Remedial measures were highly effective in reducing this, but greater anticipation and investment at the design phase may have prevented this. Interviews by Ekblom with offenders on the London Underground (Clarke and Eck 2005) revealed that offenders would stand by signs warning passengers of “pickpocketing in operation,” as after reading these signs passengers would frequently pat their own pockets, which was of considerable assistance to the offender in identifying which pockets a wallet was likely to be in.
Emerging Issues And Future Debate
There are a number of recent developments that should be mentioned, as they offer insights into potential avenues for further research into crime patterns on the public transport network. One of the issues that was raised but perhaps not answered within this research paper is whether public transport systems act as a generator or attractor of crime, or perhaps both. A recent paper (Bernasco and Block 2011) investigated the distribution of street robberies in Chicago and how this was influenced by crime generators, crime attractors, and offender anchor points. They suggested that stations provide an increased level of accessibility to areas and found that street blocks with a station had four times as many robberies as similar street blocks without them. However, they suggested that the impact of stations alone was not the significant factor, and the combined impact of a number of additional features near to stations was also contributory. Indeed, research in both Vancouver and New Jersey (Sedelmaier 2003) found no evidence that, on their own, the introduction of a new station to an area increases crime risk.
Block and Block (2000) describe the environs of transport stations and importance of the nearby environment, and Robinson and Giordano (2011) discuss the importance of what they term spatial interplay, the interaction of land uses in relation to crime incidents around transport stations. As described in the Herrmann (2011) study, it is not just the location of subway stations that influenced when and where street robbery occurred but also what was near to the station. A clear avenue for future research is to examine this spatial interplay in more detail, of the interaction between crime risk; and the environs of public transport stops and stations and associated nearby land use types.
Newton et al. (forthcoming) examine this interaction by considering pocket picking and theft on the London underground, and the relationship between what happens above the ground and below the ground, which could be termed the transmissibility of crime on public transport. This research shows that there are distinctive patterns of theft, both outside underground stations and on the network itself. The interesting issue here is that these are policed separately (the underground by British Transport Police and aboveground by London Metropolitan Police), yet offenders do not distinguish between these two settings, in the same way they do not distinguish between the geographical boundaries of different police forces. This demonstrates the need for information sharing between these policing units and also potentially the benefit of joint operations.
It is clear that the environs of public transport and the potential transmission of crime around this system is an area for further research, particularly when examining how offenders may potentially use the public transport as part of their journey to and or from crime. This is a key question in examining the spatial and temporal patterns and concentrations of crime evident on public transport and perhaps, moreover, in determining the extent to which offenders may specialize on public transport networks. There is little information at present as to whether offenders specialize on the public transport network, and if this is different to or perhaps an extension of their usual offending patterns, and to contextualize this within the journey to crime research.
The recent work of Reynald (2011) into the relevance of guardianship raises new issues that are particularly relevant to public transport. One of the findings of her research is that the three key aspects of capable guardianship are the willingness to supervise, the ability to detect potential offenders, and the willingness to intervene. Familiarity of context was found to be a very important component of this, but the public transport network provides a dynamic environment which is constantly changing. This therefore makes transport nodes highly dynamic contexts for which perceptions of familiarity may not be time stable. When on board a moving transport vehicle, new people may enter or leave at each stop, and a vehicle may move through both familiar and perhaps unfamiliar environments. This is certainly an area that warrants future research activity.
More recent technological innovations, including the use of mobile apps such as barcode scanners and the potential for introducing new payment forms (such as scanning mobile phones to pay for entrance/exit to transport systems), may also alert offenders to more attractive handsets and smartphones, akin to the Ekblom interviews with offenders who stood near signs warning of pocket picking. Gentry (2012) examined theft of electronic products on the Massachusetts rapid transit subway and found that theft of electronic devices was concentrated at a small number of stations. As new technologies are introduced to the system, these will offer new opportunities for offending that should be researched.
A final issue that has become increasingly important on the public transport network is line of routes offenses, not en route offenses that occur on a moving vehicle, but those that disrupt lines and delay journeys, for example, damage and obstructions to lines and routes (Smith and Cornish 2006). The increasing value of metals has resulted in a growing increase in the number of metal thefts, and the rail infrastructure in particular has seen a dramatic rise in the number of copper cable thefts over recent years (Sidebottom et al. 2011). This is an example of an emerging and specific type of crime that may be expected to be concentrated spatially, particular to only a few types of environments, the transport system being a key one, and a crime that is hence likely influenced by criminal opportunities associated with the configuration of the transport network.
- Bernasco W, Block R (2011) Robberies in Chicago: a block-level analysis of the influence of crime generators, crime attractors, and offender anchor points. J Res Crime Del 48(1):33–57
- Block R, Block C (2000) The Bronx and Chicago: street robbery in the environs of rapid transit stations. In: Goldsmith V, McGuire P, Mollenkopf J, Ross T (eds) Analyzing crime patterns; frontiers of practice. Sage, Thousand Oaks, pp 137–152
- Burrell A (2007) Violence on and around public transport.
- UCL Jill Dando Institute, University College, London Ceccato V, Uittenbogaard AC, Bamzar R (2011) Safety in Stockholm’s underground stations: the importance of environmental attributes and context. Secur J Advance Access 26 December 2011: 1743–4645 http://www. palgrave-journals.com/sj/journal/v26/n1/abs/sj201132a. html Security Journal (2013) 26, 33–59. doi:10.1057/sj.2011.32; published online 26 December 2011
- Clarke R (1996) Preventing mass transit crime. In: Crime prevention studies, vol 6. Willow Tree Press, Monsey
- Clarke R, Eck J (2005) Crime analysis for problem solvers in 60 small steps. Office of Community Oriented Policing Services, United States Department of Justice, Washington, DC
- Cozens P, Neal R, Hillier D, Whitaker J (2004) Tackling crime and fear of crime while waiting at Britain’s railway stations. J Pub Transport 7(3):23–41
- Department for Transport (DfT) (2010) Estimated costs to society of crime on public transport in England in 2006/07: final report on findings. DfT, London
- Gentry K (2012) Smartphones and safe subways: preventing cell phone theft within the MBTA subway system. Paper presented at the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences (ACJS) Conference, New York City, 13–17 Mar 2012
- Herrmann C (2011) Risky businesses: a micro-level spatiotemporal analysis of crime, place, & business establishment type. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, The City University of New York, New York
- LaVigne N (1997) Visibility and vigilance: metro’s situational approach to preventing subway crime. National Institute of Justice, Washington, DC
- Loukaitou-Sideris A, Liggett R, Hiseki I (2002) The geography of transit crime: documentation and evaluation of crime incidence on and around the green line stations in Los Angeles. J Plann Educ Res 22(2):135–151
- Newton A (2004) Crime and disorder on buses: towards an evidence base for effective crime prevention. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, University of Liverpool, Liverpool
- Newton A (2005) Crime on public transport: static and non-static (moving) crime events. West Criminol Rev 5(3):23–40
- Newton A (2008) A study of bus route crime risk in urban areas: the changing environs of a bus journey. Built Environ 34(1):88–103
- Newton A, Bowers K (2007) The geography of bus shelter damage: the influence of crime, neighbourhood characteristics and land use. Int J Criminol http://www. internetjournalofcriminology.com/; http://www.internetjournalofcriminology.com/Newton%20and%20Bowers%20-%20The%20Geography%20of%20Bus%20Shelter%20Damage.pdf
- Newton AD, Johnson SD, Bowers KJ (2004) Crime on bus routes: an evaluation of a safer-travel initiative. Policing Int J Police Strat Manag 27(3):302–319
- Newton A, Partridge H, Gill A (forthcoming) Above and below: examining the transmissibility of theft risk on the London underground
- Reynald D (2011) Guarding against crime: measuring guardianship within routine activity theory. Ashgate, Surrey
- Robinson J, Goridano L (2011) Spatial interplay: interaction of land uses in relation to crime incidents around transit stations. In: Andresen M, Kinney B (eds) Patterns, prevention, and geometry of crime. Routledge, London, pp 175–199
- Sedelmaier C (2003) Railroaded: the effects of a new public transport system upon local crime patterns. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University, New Jersey
- Sidebottom A, Belur J, Bowers K, Tompson L, Johnson SD (2011) Theft in price-volatile markets: on the relationship between copper price and copper theft. J Res Crime Del 48(3):396–418
- Smith M (2008) Addressing the security needs of women passengers on public transport. Secur J 21:117–133
- Smith M, Clarke R (2000) Crime and public transport. Crime Justice A Rev of the Res (27) pp 169–233.
- Smith M, Cornish B (2006) Secure and tranquil travel: preventing crime and disorder on public transport. UCL Jill Dando Institute of Crime Science, London
- Tompson L, Partridge H, Shepherd N (2009) Hot routes: developing a new technique for the spatial analysis of crime. Crime Mapp J Res Pract 1(1):77–96
- Transit Cooperative Research Program (TRCP) (2009) Chapter 2: Passenger perception of crime and terrorism. TCRP synthesis 80: transit security update. Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC, pp 10–15
- Van Andel H (1989) Crime prevention that works: the care of public transport in the Netherlands. Brit J Criminol 29(1):47–56
- Vu Y (2009) Bus stops and crime: do bus stops increase crime opportunities in local neighbourhoods? Unpublished Ph.D. thesis, Rutgers University, New Jersey
- Yavuz N, Welch EW (2010) Addressing fear of crime in public space: gender differences in reaction to safety measures in train transit. Urban Stud 47(12):2491–2515
Free research papers are not written to satisfy your specific instructions. You can use our professional writing services to buy a custom research paper on any topic and get your high quality paper at affordable price.


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1 killed in fatal hit-and-run accident in New JerseyRobert A. Solomon, P.C.
When a driver speeds, gets behind the wheel drunk or hits a victim and doesn’t stop, that person should simply not be on the roads. In cases of wrongful deaths, it’s not just the victim who suffers. His or her family and friends feel the emotional loss as well as the financial implications of the person’s death. That’s why so many people seek wrongful death lawsuits against negligent drivers like the one in this story.
A man has been charged in a hit-and-run accident that killed the cousin of Ben Simmons, the number one pick in the National Basketball Association draft in July. He was charged with leaving the scene of the fatal hit-and-run accident. Authorities say he had run several red lights and stop signs before hitting a pedestrian on Willow Avenue and Sixth Street in Hoboken.
The 50-year-old driver was in a black SUV when the accident took place around 3:30 a.m. on June 25. The man driving the SUV reportedly hit the victim straight on as he was crossing the road, dragging him out of view of the traffic camera. It’s believed that the driver was traveling at 70 mph or faster at the time of the impact. Cameras at the scene were able to record video of the incident, helping police track down the hit-and-run driver.
The 50-year-old driver had previously been charged with driving under the influence, but was convicted of a lesser offense. Now, he’s been charged with leaving the scene of the accident after license plate readers were able to track his vehicle and locate him in nearby Brooklyn.
It has not been reported whether or not the family was ready to take legal action.That could be an option.
Source: NJ.com, “Man charged in hit-and-run that killed NBA player’s cousin is extradited from N.Y.,” Michaelangelo Conte, The Jersey Journal, July 27, 2016

domain: news


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Margate police are investigating a dog attack inside a home that left an 84-year-old woman dead and a 57-year-old man hospitalized with serious injuries.
According to reports, the attack happened around 9:30 p.m. Friday at the home in the 6100 block of Southwest First Street in Margate.
The Sun Sentinel reported that Carolyn Varanese has died and Joseph Varanese was taken to Northwest Medical Center.
WPLG Local 10 reported that the senior Varenese was dead from her injuries when police arrived.
The dog was taken to Broward Animal Control officials. Its breed not specified.
This is a developing story.

domain: law


Fun and Functional
When we got word that Honda was ditching the Jazz (AKA: Fit) in the Philippines in favor of a hatchback version of the City, we were very skeptical.
The Jazz has been our absolute favorite in the subcompact hatch class. The Yaris (the non-GR SE Asia version) is OK, but not exactly inspiring. The Fiesta had promise, but Powersh*t -er- Powershift issues contributed to its demise. There were others like the Rio, the Sonic, and a few more, but none really succeeded as the Jazz did for customers looking for a practical hatchback, or an enthusiast looking for something sporty that they can play with and mod.
The City Hatchback has a lot to live up to, but after spending a week with it and evaluating its potential, my opinion is that Honda made the right decision by taking this new lane, especially given their circumstances.
We actually had the City 4-door sedan and the 5-door hatchback together at the same time, allowing us to compare both vehicles directly. The hatchback is the RS variant; it's the only variant, and thankfully Honda also sent us an RS sedan. Design-wise, they're exactly the same. The front end is the same with the RS badging and the black details. The wheel design is the same, but the color is different: on the hatch the wheels are black. The wheel design seems to be a carryover from the now phased-out Jazz RS.
The big difference is really with the side profile compared to both the City sedan and the previous-gen Jazz. The City sedan is a good-looking vehicle, and so is the hatch minus the trunk. But what I like about the new generation City is how Honda borrowed some styling cues from German automobile design. The hatch actually reminds me of an Audi A1, especially with the slanted rear.
Compared to the Jazz, the profile is totally different too. The City hatch isn't wedge-shaped like its predecessor, as the A-pillar doesn't form a straight line with the hood and towards the bumper. There's no front quarter glass like you would see in the Jazz. The character line on the side is also very horizontal; if you look at the previous-gen Jazz and City, you'll spot that the crease on the side is sloped downward for a sportier look. This one is level with the road, a typical design feature on a German car like a VW or Audi.
When you pop open the trunk, gas lifts help push the tailgate up, exposing the cargo area. It's not big in standard 5-seater configuration; the width is the same as the sedan at 51 inches max and 35 inches between the wheel wells, but the depth to the rear seat is only 27 inches, which isn't much. But thankfully Honda kept the most important feature from the previous generation of the Jazz: the fold-flat seats.
Unlike many rival models, Honda has always had a system where the rear seats fold absolutely flat with the cargo area. This gave the Jazz the ability to take on cargo that would normally need a larger crossover SUV. They achieve this versatility via a mechanism that drops down the rear seat cushion to the floor, giving the backrests the ability to fold down.
Many competitor models just have a swivel point for the rear seatbacks, meaning when you fold them they stick up like a ledge. Sometimes other carmakers cleverly cheat by adding a rear cargo floor to be level with the rear seats, but not Honda with their system called ULT or Ultra Long Tall. In the new City hatch, they call it ULTR; the R being “refresh” and denotes the ability to lean back the front seat (minus the headrest) to be level with the rear seat cushions. It's supposed to be a couch of some sort; a concept of your own personal room on the road. As to what you do with that space, I'll leave that to your imagination.
The cabin of the City is very nice. The RS hatchback shares pretty much everything with the 4-door version such as the steering, dash, touchscreen audio system, cruise control, and more. There are some subtle differences like the upholstery pattern and the color of the trim on the A/C vents. The only real difference is the position of the rearview mirror; they mounted it a little bit forward and lower than where it was on the City sedan. The reason is actually in the back: it's to allow the driver to see behind because the thicker support bar (like a roll bar) for the tailgate may impede the vision a bit.
The driving feel is exactly the same if you're in town. You won't really notice the difference with the hatchback, apart from the rear feeling ever so slightly more firm on the bumps because there's not much weight past the rear axle like the sedan. This feels great to drive even on bumpy roads, and it's clear that Honda stepped up the refinement of the vehicle. It's quiet on concrete, and super smooth on asphalt. Even the horn button sounds muted in the cabin; if you own a previous-gen Jazz, you'd know that the horn sounds like it's in the car with you whenever you press the button.
In terms of acceleration, it's pretty much the same and that's because the engine is the same: it's a 1.5-liter naturally aspirated i-VTEC motor that makes 121 PS and 145 Nm of torque, and is mated to a CVT. In town, it's smooth, quiet, and a good match for the size of the vehicle. It may seem like a direct carryover from the previous generation City and Jazz, but it's a twin-cam engine and not a SOHC. So if you like having a DOHC VTEC sticker on the rear side doors, you can legit do it in this City.
I am a bit disappointed that Honda didn't select the 1.0-liter three-cylinder VTEC turbo engine in the Thai model. That engine may have 1 less PS than the 1.5L, but it has significantly more torque at 175 Nm. The torque comes in way earlier than this 1.5L too; the turbo has max torque at 2000 to 4500 rpm while the 1.5L peaks way up at 4300 rpm. Mind you, this City hatch is efficient, easily doing over 11 kilometers per liter without much effort around town. But I can only imagine how much more efficient the turbo would be compared to this one. 15 kilometers per liter in town sounds like a very real possibility.
Nevertheless, I'm enjoying the City hatchback. Honda always dials in their cars well to be fun behind the wheel, and this is no different. Actually, I think it's better than the Jazz it replaced in the way it manages weight around the bends. This hatchback is a better drive than the sedan if you enjoy cornering and driving at speed.
There are a few things I'd like changed on the City RS hatchback (and sedan), one of which is the rear camera; the video looks so low res on the really nice screen. The 360 camera system on the Almera is way ahead. But mechanically the only thing I would really want to be improved (apart from swapping out for the turbo engine) is the selection of the rear drum brakes. Dear Honda: it's 2021 and this is an RS variant. Drum brakes don't have any business being in the room, much less the conversation when planning the specs. For all the jokes hurled at the Vios 1.5 GR-S (and the 1.5 G), Toyota did select disc brakes for the rear. The same goes for the Yaris (non-GR) 1.5G.
Despite that, I do think the City hatchback is the current one to beat in the segment. It's so far ahead of the class because many of the rivals are aging models, already discontinued, or were never offered. The Yaris has been around for a while, so has the Mazda2 (but it's still good) and the Suzuki Swift (also good, but lacks power). The Mirage isn't in the same class as this either. Nissan doesn't offer the Note hatchback here to compete against the City, and we think that will be an interesting one if they do.
For the price, this is a bit more than the City RS sedan. Honda is selling this hatchback for PHP 1,115,000 versus the City RS sedan which is at PHP 1,058,000. That's fairly consistent, as Honda has always priced the hatchback higher than the sedan. Versus the old Jazz RS, the price I remember (from 2018) is PHP 1,058,000, but considering this has more tech and features, that's not too bad.
Now we come to the question: why the City hatchback and not the new generation Jazz/Fit? At the 2019 Tokyo Motor Show, Honda revealed the new generation Fit, but that wasn't to be the model for our market despite the cries from Jazz/Fit fans. And judging by the online reception by many of you (our readers) it's good that Honda didn't go in that direction for our market.
Originally, the City was a hatchback that came with a little companion scooter called the Motocompo, but a throwback wasn't the reason behind the revival of the model in hatch form. The real reason behind the existence of the City hatchback is economies of scale.
Unlike other car companies with multiple brands like the Volkswagen Group (VW, Audi, Skoda, etc.) or companies with partnerships like Toyota, Mazda, and Subaru as well as alliances like Renault, Nissan, and Mitsubishi, Honda stands alone.
That in itself poses a challenge because they can't negotiate costs with parts suppliers to achieve greater economies of scale on a per-model basis. By engineering the City sedan and City hatchback to have as many common parts as possible including body panels, they can get parts at lower costs. They're engineering their own economies of scale to be more competitive. If it was cheaper by the dozen, then it's certainly cheaper with multiple dozens.
Given the economic situation now in the region, Honda couldn't have timed it better. And the car is great too.


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FAO/GIEWS - Foodcrops & Shortages 01/00 - TURKMENISTAN (3 February)
TURKMENISTAN (3 February)
Reports indicate that the area sown to winter crops has increased sharply to 680 000 hectares and that 190 000 tonnes of quality seed has been used in sowing. Reportedly, virgin land has been bought into production. The grain production target is 1.6 million tonnes. In addition, resources are to be allocated to farmers to expand rice production to 200 000 tonnes per annum in the coming three years. The country is planning further substantial imports of land improvement, irrigation and harvesting equipment in 2000.
The 1999 grain harvest is officially estimated at a record 1.5 million tonnes, nearly 300 000 tonnes above 1998, including 226 000 tonnes produced by private farmers. The area sown to grains fell to about 570 000 hectares but the import of high quality seed and increased use of fertilizer raised yields significantly. Given the difficult foreign exchange situation and the large 1999 harvest, cereal imports in 1999/2000 are expected to remain very low. The country has introduced excise duties as of 1 October 1999 to protect domestic production. These include duties of 50 percent on imports of flour and pasta and of US$100 on exports of ammonium nitrate fertilizer.
Good growing conditions also favoured cotton production and output almost doubled to 1.3 million tonnes.

domain: agronomy


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Have you ever thought about surgery in the metaverse? Sounds strange, but now actually this is possible. The surgeon Dr. Pedro Gouveia presented in the Breast Unit of the Champalimaud Foundation located in Lisbon to complete surgery with the guidance of Dr. Rogelio Andrés-Luna, who was addressing the University of Zaragoza, in Spain.
The entire operation was executed like a Hollywood sci-fi movie. Both surgeons could feel like they were in the same room.
This operation was made possible through mixed reality goggles- the Hololens 2 and private 5G Networks and obviously the expertise of doctors.
By wearing Hololens, Dr. Gouveia can see the patient in front of him with crucial information displayed on the goggles.
As Dr. Gouveia is a pioneer of metaverse surgery, he was much aware of the use of virtual technology and Hololens to perform breast cancer surgeries. Dr. Andrés-Luna was seated on the stage at the Congress of the Spanish Association of Breast Surgeons, 900KM away from the operation theater.
The success of this breast surgery clearly shows the potential of virtual technology in the upcoming future. However, for adequate synchronization of both doctors’ actions, they have used a private 5G network, using German software. 4G network bandwidth is not compatible to operate this kind of risky surgery.
“5G pulverizes latency, reducing it to a few milliseconds. That is why it was so crucial in the context of our experiment.” Said Dr. Gouveia, “We performed the first live experiment in the world, during breast cancer surgery, using what we call ‘remote proctoring.’”
Dr. Andrés-Luna said, “I provided indications to my ‘apprentice.’ I was able to indicate the sites where he needed to be extra-careful, and show him images or videos. We were in constant audiovisual contact.”
Subscribe to The Crypto Times for more Metaverse news !!

domain: medical


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From leaders in the military to leaders in their own business, Richard and Cindy Allen have taken what they’ve learned from their military service and applied it to their franchise.
The couple purchased their Jani-King franchise in December 2012 and have been growing ever since. They chose Jani-King, Richard said, because they were contacted by a few different franchising brokers when they started doing their initial research and the janitorial company just seemed like it had the most promise.
“Jani-King seemed to fit pretty well because of their local structure with a regional office and the fact that you were offered cleaning contracts based on your investment level. None of the other franchises that we looked at offered that,” Richard said during a recent interview from the couple’s franchise office in their home in north New Jersey.
Richard, who served in the military from 1980-86 and left as an infantry Captain, worked in sales in the building materials industry for over 20 years after his military career ended. Cindy, who served in the military from 1979-86 and left as a Captain in the Branch Medical Service Corps., worked in hospital administration in her post-military life.
The turning point for them wanting to purchase their own franchise came when Richard’s company was purchased by larger one and he was let go in the ensuing merger. He found himself without a job but with a decent severance package. However, he had signed a two-year non-compete agreement so he couldn’t go back into the industry he knew. This necessitated a fresh start and Cindy decided to join him in their new venture.
Becoming Franchisees After they signed their franchising agreement, Cindy said, they went through a full week of training at the Jani- King regional office. Then, after they secured their first couple of accounts, the operations people with the franchise worked with them as they started their first contract and helped them through the process of getting set up. The franchise representatives stayed with them for about two or three weeks as everything got up and running.
Plus, any time they’ve started a new type of building that requires specialty cleaning — such as healthcare facilities — they’ve received specialized training for that. To teach franchisees how to clean hospitals and healthcare centers, Jani-King sends up a dedicated team of instructors from Dallas who train franchisees how to clean these specialty buildings. They’ll teach franchisees how to operate and bill for a hotel and do pretty much everything for any new type of building, she added.
As for ongoing support and training, Jani- King has Introduced the couple to all the industry experts they’re associated with, such as janitorial product and equipment supply companies. There is an ongoing training element as they meet all these industry players and learn about their role in the janitorial industry.
The franchise also provides marketing support, advertising, billing, collections and business insurance. The business insurance is especially helpful, Cindy said, because Jani-King offers a business protection plan based on the amount of sales they have rather than being one flat rate.
While the franchise has been active for a while now, the couple is still getting used to the demands of being their own bosses. As with most new franchises, the work life balance has tipped a little more toward work.
“When you own your own business, you own your own business 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” Cindy said. “So, you really can’t just not answer the phone. If somebody doesn’t show up, or an employee has an issue with one of your sites, you need to be available for that, but we knew that going in.”
Rather than Richard traveling two or three nights per week though, he does get to come home every night. Sometimes it’s late, she noted, but he always gets to come home, which is good.
For someone interested in joining the Jani- King franchise system, the couple said, they would tell them to know that it’s a lot different than working for a large company where there are teams of people to take care of IT, human resources, sales and operations. Fortunately with Jani-King, there is a local, regional office support team that assists with many of those tasks.
The couple admits that there have been growing pains while adjusting to franchise ownership. For example, they’ve taken on some accounts that they shouldn’t have because they were a little too eager to get as many accounts as they could. However, if a client is located three hours away and you’re only making $200 per month from that client, it may not be worth it.
“You just have to be selective in the accounts you take to make sure you leverage your resources appropriately,” Cindy advised. The couple currently has 35 employees and serve 30 clients.
Both Richard and Cindy credit their military service with giving them leadership skills that have helped them deal with their 30 employees. When you own a franchise, you have to be a sound leader, as well as an educator and a motivator and you need to be able to keep your team focused on the end goal and the military gave them those abilities.
“You never lose those leaderships skills that you learn in the military,” Cindy said. For the couple, the transition from being employees in large companies to business owners has been challenging at times, but ultimately fulfilling.


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NBC has released the episode description for the 7th episode of Chicago Fire season 9. Chicago Fire season 9 episode 7 is titled “Dead of Winter”.
Chicago Fire 9×7 “Dead of Winter” Episode Guide
A fire at a homeless encampment leaves Severide and Casey searching for answers. Cruz is shaken up after a close call. Ritter lends a helping hand to a victim.
Chicago Fire season 9 episode 7 airs on February 17 at 9|8c on NBC.


Automation Studio TM is recognized worldwide for technical and professional training. It can be used at all levels, from high school, to technical schools (SENAI, ETEC, etc.), to higher education engineering. Charbel Nasr, President de Famic Technologies Inc. says, “The educational market in Brazil is the largest in South America. For more than 20 years, the Brazilian educational institutions have been appreciating Automation Studio TM for its intuitiveness for the teaching and training of fluid power and industrial automation technologies. In every version released, the software made available, with high degree of innovation, new features and functions that both the teachers and the students were able to apply very quickly. The partnership with Nova Didacta allows us to increase even more Automation Studio TM visibility in the educational Brazilian market and to continue providing a good support with a partner sharing the same values towards our clients and eager to bring modern solutions to the market”. Nova Didacta is a traditional Brazilian company and market leader in the educational segment who supplies solutions for simulation and labs of technical education and engineering. With national coverage, its technical team and consultants are present in all states of Brazil, developing modern lab projects for educational purposes since 2004. Silvio Cesar Alves Vieira, Director at Nova Didacta adds, “Nova Didacta recently signed a partnership with Famic in order to complement the company’s solutions portfolio. With the addition of Automation Studio TM , we can now offer to our clients a cutting-edge software in the simulation world that will be used in technical and engineering courses as well as industry projects”. About: Famic Technologies Inc. Founded in 1986, Famic Technologies Inc. offers a complete range of high-end products and services in the fields of software engineering. It is recognized worldwide for its innovative solutions, including Automation Studio TM for both educational institutions and industry as well as for Andon Studio TM , an MES tool to meet the expectations of Industry 4.0. Automation Studio TM Automation Studio TM is a unique and user-friendly software solution, which offers intuitive design, simulation, and system analysis features for teaching hydraulics, pneumatics, electrical and automation technologies. It is used by thousands of schools worldwide for teaching tomorrow's technicians and engineers. Nova Didacta Established in 2004, Nova Didacta counts with a team of specialist and consultant who develop labs for teaching in all Brazilian states. Its engineering team is trained by the engineers of renewed manufacturers, like Famic Technologies Inc which allows Nova Didacta to offer an excellent technical Support and training with teachers, technical instructors or professional engineers in all aftersales. Headquartered in São Caetano do Sul – SP, has a modern training center, where is possible to instruct customers in several levels and knowledge areas.


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440 N. Church Street
Kalamazoo, MI 49009
Kalamazoo's daytime shelter and resource center for people struggling with homelessness, poverty, substance abuse recovery & mental illness. We serve people from all walks of life in an atmosphere of dignity, hope, and acceptance.
Community, Volunteerism & Philanthropy, Homeless, Hunger & Poverty, Substance Abuse

domain: sociology


In the last debate we discussed which of the many Ryan Reynolds films was our favorite. Eleven different movies received votes but here are the top results:
- Van Wilder (4 votes) — Winner!
- Definitely, Maybe (3 votes)
- Adventureland (2 votes)
As for the other films that were supported in the debate, Smoking Aces, Paper Man, Chaos Theory, Waiting, The Nines, Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle, Buried, and Blade: Trinity all received just one vote each.
This week, with Cowboys & Aliens — check out our giveaway contest here — coming out in a few days, I want to know which Daniel Craig film is your favorite! To be clear, you’re voting on which of his films is your favorite overall; not just which Daniel Craig role you liked the most. Cast your votes in the comments below and check back next Tuesday to find out which film won!


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Sunil Subramaniam, Managing Director, Sundaram Mutual, answers questions related to key industry issues
02-Dec-2021 •Research Desk
Revision of expense slabs by the regulator, the push towards passives, and the anticipated entry of several new AMCs translate into a greater focus on cost. Do you believe there is potential to drive the costs (expense ratios) down substantially from the current levels while still running the business profitably?
The key issue is one of scale - mutual funds are high on operating leverage. Hence, the greater the scale, the greater the margins once we cross the break-even point. The regulator has addressed the issue of scale at the fund-management level by stipulating a reverse-cascading fee structure, which has taken down the costs dramatically. But fund-manager salaries are not the only cost; sales and distribution costs are spread across the fund pool and hence, smaller AMCs are at a severe disadvantage on this aspect and hence, there is a limited scope to drive down the costs further. This is also the reason the focus of new AMCs is on the passive space where these costs are minimal. From an investor perspective, if he is cost conscious, he already has a choice now of (1) choosing passive or (2) choosing a large-sized fund and (3) going direct. Hence, I don't see a need to drive down the costs further substantially.
Many people these days take to equity investing by owning the stocks directly. Innovations like smallcase are further catalysing this trend. What implications do you see on the businesses of mutual funds? Can they pose a challenge to the growth story you would envision for the fund industry?
Direct equity investing by retail/HNI (high networth individuals) investors come more from a 'speculative' or 'trading' mentality, driven by the 'greed to make quick gains' and has been given a boost by the liquidity-driven secular rise in the markets, making many of these investors feel they are 'very smart' when actually they are just 'very lucky'. So, as the markets go through their fluctuations and sinusoidal moves over the medium term, these very investors will form a very fertile base for the mutual fund industry to tap into, to expand the investor base. So, I actually feel that this is a form of market expansion which will help the industry grow in the longer term.
Rapid-fire questions:Investment guru/manager you admire the most: Prashant Jain - the courage of conviction demonstrated even through long periods of underperformance.

domain: finance


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05-23-2012, 07:20 PM #1
Amit Pachori dons the role of a South super star for Adaalat
Sony Entertainment Television’s court room drama Adaalat, produced by Contiloe Entertainment will now see the story of a South Indian super star who has died many years back, but is again seen after four years. The actor apparently starts killing people.
Amit Pachori, who was seen essaying the role of Tatya Guru in Contiloe’s successful show Jhansi Ki Rani on Zee TV, will play the role of the super star down South. Divya Jagdale will be seen as the public prosecutor in the episode.
Amit Pachori actually essays a double role, that of the star and an ardent fan of the star, who is caught for the murder. K D Pathak (Ronit Roy) has this tough challenge of defending the fan.
Is the actor still alive or is his ghost killing people? Or is it the duplicate who is involved?
When contacted, Amit Pachori told us, “I play a double role, that of a popular star and his fan. I had to work really hard to get the diction of a South Indian right. It’s a great experience to be part of Contiloe shows, it’s like a home coming for me.”
Don’t miss this interesting episode in Adaalat...


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5 августа 2009 | Автор: Admin | Рубрика: Компьютерная литература » Черчение и рисование | Комментариев: 0
Sharon Cather ,"The Conservation of Wall Paintings: Proceedings of a Symposium Organized"
Getty Publications | January 16, 1992 | ISBN: 089236162X | PDF | 176 pages | 5.8mb
This book focuses on the proceedings of a meeting on the conservation of wall paintings held at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London in 1987. The papers, by an international group of experts, address both pre-conservation assessment techniques and methods of monitoring projects after conservation. The conservation of some well-known paintings, such as the Sistine Chapel, the Brancacci Chapel, and the Nefertari tomb are discussed. A definitive paper on the effect of salts on wall paintings is also included.

domain: artistic


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Taroudant, Morocco was ranked 5th as the world’s largest strawberries exporter, based on the statistics given by the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries.
Similar source stated that throughout 2013-2014 harvest year the country exported roughly 74k tons, representing 7% of the global market.
In the similar year, the kingdom exported 55k tons of frozen strawberries, representing 72% of the entire exports and 19k tons for the fresh group with 28%.
The ministry stated that 95% of Moroccan strawberries were exported to European nations.
More than 3,3k hectares have been distributed for strawberry farming in Morocco, typically in the in the lush areas of Gharb, Loukkos, Souss-Massa, and Draa.
To rejoice this significant state product, which is rare to Morocco amongst Arab nations, the kingdom coordinates yearly the International Festival of strawberry in the Moroccan ocean resort of Moulay Bousselham in order to make producers of strawberries in the nation recognizable with the new measures of production and conservation of this sweet fruit.


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Horse Trouble (Paperback)
An American Library Association 2021 Best Graphic Novel for Children
Twelve-year-old Kate is laser-focused on her one true passion: horseback riding. But try as she might, she can't hide from life's problems in the stable.
There's nothing Kate loves more than being around horses. But her best friend is allergic to them, so Kate has to take riding lessons without her. Kate's forced to navigate some of life's hardships—like the mean girls at the stable who tease her and her body insecurities—all on her own. To make matters worse, Kate is continually falling off her horse. To Kate, her tween years feel like one unfair punishment after another. Can she get over it all…and get back on her horse?
Horse Trouble, the debut graphic novel from children's book artist Kristin Varner, is an oh-so-relatable graphic novel with humor and heart.
About the Author
Kristin Varner grew up in the Rocky Mountains of Utah, where she fell in love with horses at a young age. Kristin received her degree in illustration from Rhode Island School of Design and has created art for children’s books, magazines, games, apparel, and toys. Horse Trouble is her debut title as an author and graphic novelist. She lives in Seattle, Washington, with her husband and daughter and she's still a little crazy about horses.
"Kate’s first-person narration imbues a matter-of-fact tone, matched by panels—sketched in blue pencil and digitally inked—that carefully detail expressive Kate’s ups, downs, and in-betweens."—Publishers Weekly
"Although horses are Kate’s 'thing,' readers don’t need to be horse lovers to empathize with her self-consciousness and growing self-confidence."—School Library Journal


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Health Tip: Binge Drinking's Risks
It can trigger a host of health problems
(HealthDay News) -- Binge drinking occurs when the number of alcoholic drinks consumed in a short period raises a person's blood alcohol level to 0.08 grams percent or above, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
This works out to consuming in two hours about five drinks for the average man and four drinks for the average woman, the agency said.
The CDC cites these dangers of binge drinking:
- Increased risk of car accidents, burns, drowning and falls.
- Increased risk of involvement in assault, domestic violence or other forms of intentional injury.
- Increased risk of alcohol poisoning, and having a child with fetal alcohol syndrome.
- Increased risk of getting pregnant unintentionally or contracting a sexually transmitted disease.
- Increased risk of cardiovascular disease, liver disease and neurological damage.
- Increased risk of poorly managed diabetes.


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Charity concert with Norwich Community Choir and Village Voices
Sat 15 October 2016, 19:30 – 21:00 BST
A joint concert with Norwich Community Choir and Village Voices, in support of Norwich Food Bank.
A variety of songs from around the world to leave you smiling!
Norwich Food Bank provide emergency food for local people in crisis.
Tickets £5 on the door including refreshments.
For more information on the choirs please visit our websites: