Bystanders on Board: Empowering Passengers to Transform Public Transit Safety
How a Social Marketing Campaign Can Transform Public Transit Safety
By Casey Laplante
When people think about safety on public transportation, whether it’s on subways, buses, commuter or light rail, the usual first thoughts are often infrastructure: surveillance cameras, lighting, guardrails, and security staff. But there is another powerful safety piece that is sometimes overlooked: the human factor, the community of riders and staff, the bystander.
Because when people seize opportunities to intervene, communities can change.
Why Bystanders Matter in Transit Environments
In dense public‐transport environments like subways, buses, and commuter rails, there are thousands of interactions happening every day. Riders may see harassment, threatening behavior, violence, or escalating situations where individuals could be helped if someone intervenes (safely and effectively). The psychological phenomenon known as the bystander effect1 poses real risks in these contexts. This dynamic, first identified in the brutal murder and assault of Kitty Genovese in 1964, highlights the tendency for individuals to be less likely to help the more other people are present. The effect of having a large number of bystanders is that the majority of people present think, “I don’t need to act, someone else will intervene.” The recent “Murder on the Metro: The Bystander Effect in Action” case underscores the urgent need for passengers and employees to shift from passive observation to active, empowered intervention.
What a Health Communications Strategy for Transit Systems Means
A “health communications strategy” may sound like it belongs only in hospitals or public-health departments, but when we apply the lens to public transit, it becomes powerful. In this context, a health communications strategy for bystander intervention means deploying social marketing (see below) public awareness campaigns (messaging, signage, digital screens, peer modelling) to shift awareness and attitudes into prosocial behaviours. This includes:
Integrating communications into the transit system’s broader safety, operational and customer-service frameworks to support anchors like staffing, reporting systems, audible alerts, platform design, and physical infrastructure.
Recognizing that unsafe behaviors/interactions (harassment, assault, passive neglect) have negative health and safety consequences for riders, and staff, and impact transit systems’ reputation.
Designing communications (station signage, social media, bus ads, employee policies/messaging) that influence attitudes, beliefs, social norms, and ultimately behaviors.
Embedding these communications into the transit system’s infrastructure (stations, vehicles, signage, digital displays, announcements) and culture (staff training, rider engagement).
Measuring impact (levels of awareness, behavior change, reduction in incidents) and iterating. In short: it’s not just putting up safety posters with a catchy slogan. It’s a strategic, research-based program that aligns with behavioral science and is intentionally evaluated.
Wait, did you say ‘Social Marketing’? Does that mean Social Media?
While it might sound similar, social marketing is not the same as social media. Social marketing uses marketing principles, grounded in subject matter expertise, to influence behaviors for the public good: it’s about changing attitudes and actions by leveraging evidence-based practices. For example, Soteria Solutions’ Know Your Power® campaign is a social marketing initiative: it identifies harmful scenarios, models safe intervention behaviors, and delivers targeted messaging across multiple channels like posters, digital signage, audio, staff engagement, and yes, social media too. It activates bystander behavior, rather than just raising awareness. Social media can be one tool in this broader health communications strategy, but Know Your Power’s impact comes from a coordinated, research-based approach to behavior change.
Why This Strategy Can Benefit Transit Systems
High-volume, multi-modal environment – Transit systems see large numbers of riders, varied settings (platforms, vehicles, waiting areas), and diverse user profiles (daily commuters, visitors, vulnerable populations). This creates both risk and opportunity: risk for incidents, but opportunity for scale of impact.
Shared space, shared responsibility – Unlike private settings, public transit is inherently communal. The sense of “someone else will intervene” can be strong, but a health communications strategy can help shift “someone else” into “someone like me can safely act.”
Intersection of mobility and health – Transit safety is a health issue: physical safety, mental/emotional safety, and community trust. As noted in the research on “Public Transportation System and Public Health Communication,” cities used transit system channels during COVID-19 to communicate health and safety messages to riders.
Norms and culture matter – Safety emerges not just from rules, but from culture: what riders believe is acceptable, what actions they see others taking (or not). Communications can help shift social norms (e.g., “It’s okay and expected to safely step in when someone appears threatened”).
Evaluation and accountability – A well-designed, research-informed social marketing campaign offers metrics (awareness, self-reported action, incident rates) and justification for ongoing funding and partnership.
Why This Matters Now
Transit systems today operate at the intersection of complex pressures: rider safety concerns, public perception, staffing challenges, cost pressures, reputational scrutiny, and increased focus on maintaining public trust. The human dimension of safety in transit systems is under-leveraged. Social marketing like Know Your Power® offers a pre-emptive, systemic approach to safety that utilizes this human dimension and moves beyond reactive measures (responding after incidents) to proactive empowerment of every rider and staff member as part of the safety network.
At the same time, incidents of harassment, bias-based harm, and bystander inaction continue to make national headlines. The public expects transit systems to do more than increase enforcement or retrofit infrastructure. Riders want to feel that the people around them, other riders and transit staff, will be able to recognize concerning behavior and know how to respond safely and effectively.
This creates a critical window for transit authorities to use the tools of social marketing and behavioral science to influence how people behave in shared spaces. Transit environments already shape norms: what is posted on walls, heard in announcements, displayed on digital signs, and reinforced through staff interactions become part of the culture. When those messages promote proactive, prosocial bystander behavior that is grounded in evidence and backed by strong system leadership, they can become a powerful lever for safety, trust, and community cohesion.
A research-informed health communications strategy therefore becomes essential, not optional. It enables transit systems to shift from reactive responses to a proactive safety culture where riders and staff recognize behaviors of concern, understand expectations, and feel empowered to take safe, appropriate action within their role.
Call to Action
When considering a bystander-focused public awareness strategy, transit agencies should look for approaches grounded in behavioral science, tailored to real transit scenarios, and fully integrated into existing safety and customer-service systems.
By partnering with Soteria Solutions, a transit authority is offering more than a designed poster campaign: they are offering a culture shift and measurable return on investment (improved rider confidence, incident reduction, system reputation).
If your transit organization is ready to build a community of safety and shared responsibility, we’d love to connect. Together, we can adapt and customize Know Your Power or another one of our solutions for your specific system that engages your riders, staff, and stakeholders through a tailored health communications strategy grounded in research and focused on behavioural impact.
For more information or to schedule a conversation click Contact Us below or reach out via email at info@soteriasolutions.org.
1. Darley, J. M., & Latané, B. (1968). Bystander intervention in emergencies: Diffusion of responsibility. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 8(4), 377–383.