The role of traffic management in crime prevention

Abstract

The toolbar of crime prevention often includes at first glance, activities that appear to be distant, including methods whose relationship to prevention can only be identified through deeper scrutiny. As a result of this distance, in many cases, the preventive effect is mediated indirectly by complex mechanisms. Prevention-based regulation and development of traffic and transport will become a major demand in the 21st century in the case of settlements with increasing population density, in the current urbanization era. Prophylaxis-based traffic management, as a tool of crime prevention through environmental design (CPTED), involves the transformation and the development of traffic along defined principles that enhance individuals’ sense of safety, develop natural surveillance, and reduce frustration and aggression of transport users. This practice is based on multidisciplinary knowledge, which includes not only environmental criminology but also urban sociology, environmental psychology and related engineering sciences (eg. traffic, architecture).