Figures released by British Transport Police (BTP) have shown that reported crime on the Southern rail network has fallen in the last year and bucked the trend for London and the south.

The BTP statistics have revealed an 8.23% drop in the last 12 months - with 385 fewer offences being committed.

Southern’s figures are in contrast to the total crime figures for London and the South of England over the same period, which rose slightly by 0.78%. The figures showed that in the 12 months to April, over-all crimes reported on the Southern network fell from 4,679 incidents in the year 2012 to 2013, to 4,294 in 2013 to 2014 – a reduction of 385.

Southern’s head of revenue protection and security, Stella Morris, said: “Crime continues to fall every year on the Southern network, which is a testament to the efforts of BTP, our own staff and the investment we have made in making our stations and trains much safer places to be.” Ms Morris said: “We are particularly pleased that anti-social crime has fallen by well over 14%. “This kind of crime is where we can make the biggest impact, and the work of our Safer Travel Team, with its 32 Rail Neighbourhood Officers, has contributed hugely to this reduction.”

Southern stated that 169 million passenger journeys are made on its network each year.

It said the figures translate to just one crime committed for every 39,000 journeys, making the chances of becoming a victim of crime on the Southern network very slim. Ms Morris added: “The reduction in crime is encouraging, but we know there is still much work to do and we will continue to work closely with BTP on reducing crime on our network even further.”

All Southern’s trains have CCTV coverage, all its stations have live digital CCTV directly linked to its Control Centre at Three Bridges, Crawley, and all have Help Points which are linked to the Control Centre where passengers can talk to an operator. Southern stated that almost 99% of all its passengers pass through stations with Secure Station accreditation and its Safer Travel Team, made up of 32 Rail Neighbourhood Officers and BTP Officers, regularly patrol the network, preventing, detecting and dealing with low-level crime. Passengers can report low-level crime to eyewitness@southernrailway.com Southern provides services in South London and between central London and the South coast, through East and West Sussex, Surrey and parts of Kent and Hampshire. It manages 156 stations, 120 of which have secure stations status. Website: southernrailway.com