Abstract for: Fear of Crime on Transit Journeys: Understanding using System Archetypes

Traditional transit planning often ignores how visible disorder and fear disproportionately affect vulnerable riders, especially women. Rather than treating all passengers as a single group, there is a critical need to understand the complex social environments that shape how safe a person actually feels. This work maps the core systems driving fear on transit to better understand the psychological reasons behind rider anxiety and avoidance. Literature from urban planning, criminology, and transit operations is being reviewed to build qualitative Causal Loop Diagrams. Instead of focusing on static physical factors like station lighting, the focus is on dynamic social factors such as natural surveillance and how riders change their routines to avoid threats. This helps to accurately map complex psychological coping behaviors. Preliminary results show two main patterns. First, when riders feel threatened, they overestimate wait times, which discourages ridership and weakens the protective "Safety in Numbers" effect. Second, when fearful riders change their schedules to avoid crowds, this temporary fix actually harms long-term safety by breaking down protective networks of "eyes on the street" who naturally deter crime. This framework helps planners see how well-meaning safety policies might accidentally backfire or shift problems elsewhere. Future work will focus on accurately modeling vulnerable riders without losing their unique needs in broad averages. We will also map the "gray zones" between transit agencies, police, and social services to show how poor coordination harms passenger safety. LLM for writing & note-taking during reviews.