Passengers step off the SkyTrain at the Stadium station in Vancouver. (Mike Laanela/CBC)

SkyTrain riders will soon see drug-sniffing police dogs and more attendants as part of a plan to boost security on the system.

Under the program, specially trained police officers will patrol the SkyTrain line with dogs. If the program is deemed a success, the Transit Police Service could then develop its own dog squad, according to Doug Kelsey, CEO of the B.C. Rapid Transit Company, which operates the SkyTrain for the regional transit authority.

In addition, new transit attendants, who are not police officers, will be permanently placed at four SkyTrain stations: Surrey Central, New Westminster, Broadway and Main, said Kelsey.

The security measures are a response to public belief that those four stations are less safe, he said.

"There's four perceived stations, and I use the word perceived, where people are feeling less safe…. So there will be staff there as long as we are open. Ironically enough, that's not necessarily where crime is the most challenging for us," said Kelsey.

"The station that is seen as the safest station on the whole system is Waterfront, and yet that is the one in fact where there is unfortunately more crime incidents," he said.

Attendant needed at Waterfront: MLA

NDP MLA Raj Chouhan has campaigned for increased security on SkyTrain and is pleased security is being increased, but he questions the decision not to post the new attendants at the Waterfront station as well.

"I hope they would also be careful to have permanent staff at all the stations where crime is high, rather than dealing with perception only," said Chouhan.

He wants more staff at Waterfront and in his Burnaby-Edmonds riding, at the Edmonds SkyTrain station.

TransLink said it is also improving lighting at some of the older Expo Line stations, and developing a bicycle patrol to respond to reports of crime faster.

The crime rate at the Waterfront station is high because it includes all crimes reported within a short distance of the busy downtown station, a Translink spokesman later told the CBC.