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Question: What makes connections (often deep ones) between diverse areas, has a network of equally diverse participants, and the potential to significantly impact the life of cities and their inhabitants? Answer: The researchers who combined to produce this special issue, of course. I was privileged to see them, and others, in action at a workshop convened in Stockholm by the Editor of this special issue, and to read the papers published here. I am no specialist in transport crime, but have a broad interest in research and practice in crime prevention and particular concern with the built environment and with design in general. The Editor has already capably summarised the content of the articles in the Introduction, which allows me, in what follows, to reflect on some of the many issues raised, both specific to transport and common to the whole of crime science.

This paper outlines a framework which draws together the currently fragmented understandings of, and actions against, terrorism. The ‘conjunction of terrorist opportunity’ (CTO) stems from a widely known equivalent in crime prevention. Detailed distinctions emerge which clarify the relationship between crime and terrorism. There is special emphasis on historical and higher-level emergent causes, including terrorists' pursuit of strategic objectives and the career of the terrorist organisation itself, as it co-evolves with the society trying to frustrate and destroy it. But the framework seeks to anchor these understandings by reference to terrorist events and their immediate causes. On the basis of this analysis a suite of interventions can then be chosen to match terrorist problem and context and to reflect tactical and strategic priorities. Although the framework is only sketched here, it appears sufficiently promising to test out on a range of case studies by diagnosing causes and describing or suggesting interventions.