Deutsche Bahn has been equipping its customer advisors at stations and on trains with body cameras for a few weeks now – around a third have taken advantage of the voluntary offer so far. “We want to achieve a quota of 50 percent by the middle of the year,” said DB Regional boss Harmen van Zijderveld to the German Press Agency. Enough body cameras are available. By summer, all employees with customer contact should have attended mandatory training, said van Zijderveld.
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The goal is to make body cameras standard equipment for customer service representatives. “We encourage employees not to wait until a critical incident occurs before using a body camera,” said van Zijderveld.
The number of attacks on railway employees has recently increased significantly
Surveys by the railway and transport union EVG repeatedly show that many train attendants do not feel safe in their work. The topic and specifically the safety of train attendants and customer advisors has come into greater focus since a fatal incident in Rhineland-Palatinate. At the beginning of February, a passenger punched the 36-year-old train attendant Serkan Çalar in the head and injured him so badly that he died.
According to the federal government, the number of attacks on employees of Deutsche Bahn and other railway companies rose by eleven percent to almost 2,690 between 2024 and 2025, as the Allianz Pro Schiene interest group recently announced.
Railway manager wants to link body cameras with emergency call buttons
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The body cameras of the railway employees only record images. The railway hopes that the legal requirements for audio recording will be created by autumn.
The railway employees wear the body cameras on their outer clothing. If a dangerous situation arises, the devices can be switched on at the push of a button. “The other person then sees themselves in the body camera, and that often has a de-escalating effect,” said van Zijderveld. If the situation remains tense, the recording can be started by pressing another button.
“We are currently working on linking the body cameras to the emergency call buttons that many employees wear on their arms,” said the railway manager. The aim is for the body camera to automatically start recording when the emergency call button is pressed.
Bahn presents results of initial pilot projects
Today, the railway in Frankfurt am Main wants to present the results of the first pilot projects for more safety at the subsidiary DB Regio, which operates regional trains and S-Bahn trains. For example, it should provide insights into the training of train attendants who are trained to use body cameras and self-assertion.
(afl)
