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Transit Police Sgt. Clint Hampton said seeing a busy station like Surrey Central — which had 4.2 million recorded boardings last year — at the top of the list was not a surprise, particularly because the numbers included incidents in a buffer zone around the station and calls in which officers backed up Surrey RCMP.

Hampton added the reported crimes might not only be specific to the SkyTrain station, but also be taking place in the immediate area.

“Somewhere like Surrey Central where we have quite a quite a high number, I started considering just the fact that we have all those businesses and in a very condensed area,” Hampton said.

Hampton said Waterfront is a major hub in the transit system, with passengers from West Coast Express, SeaBus, Canada Line and SkyTrain passing through.

“We’re in the downtown core, and as well as that we’re just on the outskirts of the Downtown Eastside,” Hampton added.

In the case of Vancouver City Centre and Granville, he again points to the stations’ locations in the city core, and proximity to the entertainment district.

“The downtown stations tend to have elevated numbers — we’re a condensed area,” he said.

When broken down by number of incidents per 100,000 annual boardings at the station, Surrey Central still comes out on top, with 11.6, followed by Gateway with 10.8, Coquitlam Central with 8.5, Rupert with 6.9 and Columbia with 6.4.

Hampton said Rupert is a real outlier in this case, because it sees far fewer boardings than the others in the top five or even top 10, however he didn’t have an explanation for why the number of incidents per 100,000 boardings was so high.