London transport crime over 15 years

Why I picked this question

I wanted to work with a large public dataset and answer a resourcing question: with limited staff, where do you put them? It's the same kind of question as deciding which accounts a sales team should focus on, just with police officers instead of sales reps.

How I approached it

1. Prepared the TfL crime data in Excel.
2. Built 3 Tableau dashboards: an executive overview, a trend analysis with a monthly heat map, and a risk view comparing crime volume with crime rate.
3. Summarised the findings and recommendations in a short presentation and one-page summary.

What I found

1. Buses carry the most crime by volume

Buses have by far the most reported crimes. This is likely linked to buses carrying more passengers than any other mode, which is why I also looked at crime rate.

2. The Underground has the highest crime rate

Volume isn't the whole story. When crime is measured as a rate rather than a total, the London Underground comes out highest. So the Underground needs attention even though buses have more crimes in total.

3. Crime has more than doubled, with a clear seasonal pattern

Yearly reported crime grew from 40,570 in FY2009/10 to 95,036 in FY2023/24, the highest year in the data. The only big dip was FY2020/21 (37,866), most likely because lockdowns cut travel. Across all years, November is the peak month (83,988 crimes), followed by March and October.

What I would recommend

1. Put more patrols on buses, especially in October and November.
2. Focus surveillance on the Underground, where the crime rate is highest.
3. Review the numbers every year against the 15-year trend, so the effect of any change can be measured.

What I'd look at next

This data only covers reported crime, so some crimes are missing. I'd also add passenger numbers for each mode, so every mode can be compared fairly per journey.