How Moscow Metro ensures passengers’ safety

With its 276 stations and 482 km of lines (without MCD), 20 depots and numerous ventilation units, Moscow Metro is a complex system that has to be thoroughly supervised. In order to ensure safety of passengers, the network is equipped by more than 50 thousand cameras served by only 30 operators. But this seemingly small team is enough since the intellectual monitoring system is the first to detect a suspicious behavior: from leaving a bag to entering a restricted area. The system immediately alerts the operators whose job is to react.

Usually, the bags that passengers leave are not dangerous — in 2020, people lost about 13 thousand items that ended up in the Lost and Found office. Mostly, these are bags, phones, umbrellas and purses, but last years’ list includes bag of antique coins, box of minerals, 3 kg of buckwheat, snowman costume and a box of champagne. All of them, except for the latter, had found their way to the owners.

However, Security officers of Moscow Metro advise passengers to alert the station agents first rather than touch the lost items themselves. Even an ordinary-looking mobile phone can turn out to be a booby trap. It is one of the things that new Security officers learn at the Training Centre, as well as exposing a person with a firearm or a knife using a portable metal detector, or working with a portable chemical trace detector that reveals people who had touched explosives or drugs. Another important part of their job is to assess the psychological state of passengers, paying special attention to nervous or unconventional behavior. 

The Security Service of Moscow Metro was created two years after terrorists attacked Lubyanka and Park Kultury stations in 2010. According to the Head of Security Service Andrey Kichigin, the main task is to prevent citizens with prohibited items or substances from entering the Metro’s infrastructure.

«We are the last frontier. There is also police and special services — if a person passes them, we are the last frontier that he faces,» — explains Andrey Kichigin, adding that the Service has the Rapid Response Units.

One of daily routines of the Units is to conduct the inspection of infrastructure, including after the Metro closes. They search for intruders — mainly so-called diggers (urban underground amateur explorers) or graffitists. Before 2012, there were hundreds of ways to illegally enter Metro at night. But, due to weekly field trainings and closure of weak spots, the number of trespassing incidents has phased out. The general number of security accidents has halved in four years.