CATS surveillance featured on ‘CBS This Morning’

Baton Rouge’s public transit system is featured on a CBS This Morning segment that aired today, focusing on the national debate about privacy concerns in light of increasing public surveillance. The segment zeroes in on CATS because it installed recording cameras and microphones on all of its 63 buses in 2011 with hopes of improving rider safety and behavior. CATS CEO Brian Marshall tells CBS the cameras have worked. The report says only one fight has broken out on a CATS bus over the past two years, while workers’ compensation claims have fallen 65% and passenger complaints have fallen 80%. “It’s wonderful to be able to have that audio and video component,” Marshall says. As for privacy concerns, Marshall says no one is sitting around monitoring the surveillance videos, let alone private conversations. “We don’t have that kind of time, or interest, to monitor those private kinds of conversations.” The report says CATS “seldom” looks at its recordings and keeps them for two weeks, whereas other transit systems around the country hold on to their surveillance videos for up to six months. You can check out the full segment here. CATS released a statement after the story aired this morning, saying: “CATS is becoming a technological trailblazer in the national transit community. The fact that CBS decided to feature CATS in this story is yet another example that we are moving in the right direction.”