Smile — you’re on RTS camera.
Beginning this semester, UF students who get on Regional Transit System buses will be on camera during the rides.
As of the end of the summer, all RTS buses have cameras on the inside and outside of the vehicles. Some new buses already had the cameras installed, and the older buses had the cameras installed during the summer, RTS spokesman Chip Skinner wrote in an email.
These cameras are constantly running and can be used in the case of on-board incidences and crashes, he said. The total cost of the project was $235,000.
“No particular incident caused the installation of the cameras,” Skinner said. “Cameras inside and outside the buses have become an industry standard in the last five years or so.”
There are five cameras on each bus, he said. Three are inside the bus: one each in the front, in the back and watching outside the windshield. Two outside cameras face the front of the bus.
He said that most bus drivers are happy to have the cameras on board, and the video surveillance has already saved the city from paying out some accident liability claims by showing the RTS driver was not at fault.
“There are a very few that still do not like the cameras, as they feel it is an invasion of their privacy,” Skinner said. “However, we tend to find those operators are usually doing something against our policies and procedures.”
For the most part, students see the installation of the cameras as a positive thing. Danielle Capitini, 19-year-old UF criminology and law sophomore, said she knew about the addition of cameras and didn’t feel they were an invasion of privacy.
“I think it’s just there to protect the students,” she said. “A bus isn’t really a private place anyways.”
Luigi Forvil, a 23-year-old UF philosophy junior, said he thought the cameras could be an invasion of privacy.
However, he felt the cameras are more helpful than harmful.
“It’s a good thing because if there’s a robbery, police can track it down easier,” Forvil said.
