Riders can now send videos of bad behavior in the subway system to the MTA and NYPD online, officials said yesterday.
A new option on the MTA’s website lets straphangers file a video when they contact its customer support team.
The change follows the success of an online tool added in September 2013, where commuters can send the MTA their pictures.
Since then, riders have sent the MTA about 10,000 pictures — ranging from MetroCards that don’t work to lewd riders.
“It’s part of what we’re doing to make it easier for our customers to let us know what’s going on,” said MTA spokesman Kevin Ortiz. “On sexual misconduct, hopefully it is another tool that the MTA and the police department can use to bring these individuals to justice.”
From September 2014 through Wednesday, riders used the MTA website to make 412 complaints about sexual misconduct, which were sent to the NYPD to investigate. Sixty-four passengers attached JPEGs of the transit assailants and creeps.
“It’s another way the NYPD is notified in regards to crimes, especially of a sexual nature in the subway system,” said one police official. In August, detectives arrested a Level-3 sex offender in Brooklyn who exposed himself on the D train after a subway rider sent in his picture.
Other possible videos riders can send include dangerous bus driving, a subway operator not paying attention, damaged equipment and people illegally selling swipes at their stops. Straphangers may send compliments as well — such as to illustrate a worker who rescued their cellphone from the tracks.
Most submitted images have been taken in subways and buses.
