Short-Term Association between the Introduction of 2020 Low Traffic Neighbourhoods and Street Crime, in London, UK

Abstract

Between March and September 2020, 72 ‘Low Traffic Neighbourhoods’ (LTNs) were rapidly rolled out in London under emergency legislation. We examined the association between LTN implementation and street crime in October 2020-February 2021 (‘post’), as compared to the same months in the previous two years (‘pre’). Overall crime trends in and around LTNs were more favourable than the background trend in Outer London, and similar to or slightly more favourable than the trend in Inner London. This pattern was also seen for numbers of direct attacks against the person-and this may underestimate the benefit per pedestrian, given evidence that LTN introduction is associated with increased walking.