Reducing Crime on London Buses: A Randomised Controlled Trial on Moving Hotspots

Teresa Hubbard-Chason; Barak Ariel; Noy Assaraf; Vincent Harinam

doi:10.1177/10986111251392931

Reducing Crime on London Buses: A Randomised Controlled Trial on Moving Hotspots

Teresa Hubbard-Chason
, Barak Ariel
, Noy Assaraf^*
, Vincent Harinam

^*Corresponding author for this work

Institute of Criminology

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Scopus citations

Abstract

Objectives: This study assesses the effectiveness of hotspots policing in a novel context – moving hotspots. We examine the impact of preventative police presence on high-crime-harm bus routes, known as ‘Hot Bus Corridors’.Methods: A pretest-post-test parallel groups randomised controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in London, UK, involving 556 ‘Hot Bus Corridors’ that were randomly assigned to receive either targeted visibility presence on buses or standard police presence, which served as the control group. Generalised linear models were used to estimate the treatment effect on crime levels, measured in terms of both crime counts and the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CCHI).Results: We observed a significant reduction in both crime counts and crime harm in the treatment bus corridors compared to the control corridors, with a more pronounced reduction during morning hours.Conclusion: This study extends the applicability of hotspots policing to mobile environments, demonstrating its potential to enhance public safety. High-visibility police patrols in moving hotspots can increase deterrence and, consequently, effectively reduce crime within the public transportation network.

Original language	English
Pages (from-to)	285-312
Number of pages	28
Journal	Police Quarterly
Volume	29
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1177/10986111251392931
State	Published - Jun 2026

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2025. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 11 Sustainable Cities and Communities

Keywords

crime count
crime harm
high-visibility police patrols
hot bus corridors
hotspots policing
moving hotspots
randomised controlled trial

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10.1177/10986111251392931

Cite this

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title = "Reducing Crime on London Buses: A Randomised Controlled Trial on Moving Hotspots",

abstract = "Objectives: This study assesses the effectiveness of hotspots policing in a novel context {\textendash} moving hotspots. We examine the impact of preventative police presence on high-crime-harm bus routes, known as {\textquoteleft}Hot Bus Corridors{\textquoteright}.Methods: A pretest-post-test parallel groups randomised controlled trial (RCT) was conducted in London, UK, involving 556 {\textquoteleft}Hot Bus Corridors{\textquoteright} that were randomly assigned to receive either targeted visibility presence on buses or standard police presence, which served as the control group. Generalised linear models were used to estimate the treatment effect on crime levels, measured in terms of both crime counts and the Cambridge Crime Harm Index (CCHI).Results: We observed a significant reduction in both crime counts and crime harm in the treatment bus corridors compared to the control corridors, with a more pronounced reduction during morning hours.Conclusion: This study extends the applicability of hotspots policing to mobile environments, demonstrating its potential to enhance public safety. High-visibility police patrols in moving hotspots can increase deterrence and, consequently, effectively reduce crime within the public transportation network.",

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author = "Teresa Hubbard-Chason and Barak Ariel and Noy Assaraf and Vincent Harinam",

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Reducing Crime on London Buses: A Randomised Controlled Trial on Moving Hotspots

Abstract

Bibliographical note

UN SDGs

Keywords

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