It was the murder of a woman on her way home from work two years ago that highlighted the need for improved CCTV systems in the city. In 2008, 41-year-old Arcelie Laoagan was murdered shortly after she stepped off the city’s Franklin Light Rail Transit station as she travelled home from work on the night of Jan. 17 at about 10:30 p.m.

Although the crime occurred off the station property, concern was raised that the system was unsafe. At the time of Laoagan’s death, Calgary Transit had 300 video cameras monitoring LRT stations. Surveillance was able to capture images of her getting on and off the C-Train, but not the attack. Investigators sifted through hours of LRT surveillance video and believe her attacker was on the same C-Train as Laoagan on the night of Jan. 17, 2008 and that he followed her when she left the station.

Police believe she was being followed as she walked toward the south parking lot and made her way toward a pathway behind a nearby church. Her body was badly disfigured and police had to use samples of the dead woman’s fingerprints to identity her.

About a week after Laoagan’s murder, city council approved a safety audit of the transit system. The fact she was killed in the area of the transit system brought into question the security and safety features of the C-Train line. An extensive report was done on and as a result the City decided to enhance security of C-Train and bus system.

“Right now, we’re still running an analogue CCTV system that runs on a transit internal network and we have basic access control and SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) systems — it’s old school and now we’re upgrading,” says Sean Bolli, Security Advisor with the City of Calgary Transit System. Bolli reports directly to the City of Calgary Corporate Security.

“It’s a CCTV system that was originally installed back in the 80’s when the C-Train was launched. It actually wasn’t intended for security purposes — it was intended for operational purposes to see how many passengers were at the station, and that trains were getting to stations on time. Now, the primary focus for CCTV is security,” he says.

After the initial security report came out a few years ago with regard to transit safety and security the City received funds from the government to upgrade security systems on the C-Train. Also in 2008, Transport Canada started developing a code of practice for conducting security risk assessments on mass transit operations. Calgary Transit participated in that — in fact it was one of the first projects Bolli participated after joining the City.