City Of Tucson, Sun Tran Receive Grant To Stop Human Trafficking

TUCSON, AZ — Sun Tran and the City of Tucson recently received a $221,000 grant from the Federal Transit Administration’s Human Trafficking Awareness and Public Safety Initiative. The grant will fund efforts to reduce human trafficking and crime on public transportation, and cut the assault risk faced by public transportation operators.

Sun Tran General Manager Steve Spade expects success in human-trafficking-thwarting efforts to be funded with the grant. “The federal government successfully worked with the trucking industry to increase awareness and reporting of human trafficking incidents. Now they are looking to create a similar effort with select transit systems,” Spade said. Another 23 entities share the remaining portion of the $5.4 million available under the grant initiative.

“With the support from our partners and the community, this is an opportunity for Sun Tran to enhance public safety in Tucson,” Spade added.

The efforts to be funded by the grant include educating all transit operators in Tucson and the Tucson Transportation Department staff on how to spot human trafficking activities and report them to authorities. The Arizona Transit Association will additionally collaborate with Sun Tran on offering human trafficking training to transportation operators throughout the state.

After the transit operator training phase is completed, Sun Tran will turn to educating the public about how to identify human trafficking and how to report it, too.

The Tucson Police Department’s Special Crimes Unit, specializing in human trafficking investigations, will take part in the project too, by collaborating with transportation management in training transit operators and strengthening reporting protocol.

Sun Tran will also enhance security and supervision at three local transportation centers to result in better identification of human trafficking or other criminal behavior.

In future phases, the grant will also fund Sun Tran’s efforts to decrease the number of assaults against operators, including providing enhanced security and training Sun Tran, Sun Shuttle and Sun Link supervisors and operators in de-escalation and communication techniques.