In response to Long Island Rail Road safety concerns, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority will deploy a dedicated unit of cops to ride on the trains, MTA Police Commissioner John Mueller announced.

Mueller made the announcement during the MTA committee meetings Monday. He expects the 60-officer unit to begin patrols in January.

The Train Patrol Unit will travel aboard LIRR and Metro-North trains every day at 5 a.m. in locations “out east and up north.” They will accompany commuters going into and coming out of Manhattan.

“The whole idea is just to welcome everybody back,” said Meuller. “And as you see, it’s great to see we’re seeing ridership coming up. These officers are going to be specially trained for train patrols.”

He said officers will board the trains on either side of the platform and then work towards the center. The goal behind the idea, Mueller said, is to have “a lot” of rider interaction with the officers. In most cases, he said the officers will be “following the ridership.”

“What we’ve been asking for is this train patrol and a more stronger and more robust presence,” Mueller said. “So that’s what this does. And we’re going to basically be following the ridership in most cases. So we can identify, like we can with crime, that there is a No. 1 train that is the most crowded and a platform that is the most crowded at a particular time of day going back and forth.”

He said the MTA had 22 major felonies in August, including 13 larcenies, three felony assaults and four robberies, committed throughout the system. The MTA has recorded 154 significant felonies so far this year, compared to 147 in 2021 and 162 in 2019.