Update - How Safe Are You?

After months of complaining and letter writing, DART is finally advertising for more officers. As of my original July 5th experience DART had 138 officers. While this may sound like a large number of officers, it is not. DART rail service operates 21 hours per day. That means that there are 2 1/2 eight hour shifts needed to cover the entire operating schedule of DART. There are also some 32 rail stops. You must also factor in that the officers are assigned in pairs, for their own safety. That means you have 68 pairs of officers to patrol 32 rail stops for 21 hours per day. That works out 27 pairs of officers to patrol 32 rail stops.

(I don't include the TRE in this, because since the incident, the Fort Worth transit authority has been supplying armed off-duty Fort Worth police officers to monitor activity on the TRE.)

Keep in mind that this completely excludes the bus stops and buses. This also does not include any weekends. As you can see, 138 officers for a system that spans from Rowlette to Irving and from Plano to Glenn Heights, is woefully inadequate.

To date, I have been unable to discover how many officers they are planning to add. The only information that I have been able to glean is that their "Staffing Plan" is for 237 officers. Apparently, they are about 100 officers short.