Sooner or later, if you run a bus service, you will come across brickings or other attacks on passengers, vehicles—and drivers. And, yes, I’ve had to try to sort out the aftermath on more than one occasion.
There was a piece in the paper today about a driver the subject of a fairly brutal attack. His wife remonstrated, it has to be said, principally at the operator over an horrendous assault by youths on her husband. He apparently met with a slew of stones and bricks while out of the cab fixing a panel flap lifted by his attackers.
It has to be said that, in my experience, publicity for this sort is self-defeating. It often sends the wrong signals to others. There’s a strong possibility that it might generate copycat attacks elsewhere. Far from helping, headlines in the press can simply threaten other drivers. Don’t the media understand this?
That’s not to say that we shouldn’t have anything other than the deepest respect for the driver and sympathy for him and his clearly concerned wife. It’s what you can do about this that’s so difficult to resolve. In this case, the media don’t help. Whatever the solution, it’s costly—for the operator, for the community, for drivers.
The attack was only at 1845, near Poole. Withdraw Wilts & Dorset buses to the affected area after 1800 and everyone suffers: the community (no buses), drivers (potentially reduced earnings) and operator (reduced revenue or subsidy). Such a solution is really only short term. And, do the criminals get the blame? Not in my experience. That falls squarely on the operator.
This, then, adds to the Echo’s opprobrium reserved for W&D, which is a shame. The issue is one for society and its attitude to criminal damage (for that is what vandalism is) and criminal behaviour (for that is what anti-social behaviour is, in this instance).
Other solutions also come with a price tag. Double or security staffing (doesn’t really work as the miscreants flee) or external all-round CCTV (probably unable to identify hooded feral youth in any case) both ratchet up costs that must ultimately be born by someone—passengers or revenue support.
Realistically, pulling the service is the only short-term solution if the assessment suggests the need to remove the risk. If you can’t protect remote staff then there’s little alternative. Yes, innocents suffer at the hands of the guilty but that’s what happens when we all pay increases well ahead of inflation on our council tax police precepts. Not that anyone can expect constant policing in these situations.
Wednesday, 20 May 2009
Protecting Staff
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4 comments:
The paper has another piece about it.
http://www.bournemouthecho.co.uk/news/4380742.Second_bus_driver_calls_for_a_halt_to__dreaded__routes/
TBH given its willingness to find things to print unfriendly to the co concerned, I ask myself its real motives; the well being of the drivers or its agenda. Of course everything reasonable must be done to protect drivers
You're probably right about publicity for this sort of incident being self-defeating. Of course, newspapers exist to make profits for their owners, and (generally) not to provide a public service - just like bus companies - and stories like this sell papers.
Let's face it we're probably all guilty to some extent - if one has a newspaper (or news webpage) which stories do we read first - the ones about incidents like this, or the report of the W.I. Flower Show? The problem is, as you say, one for society as a whole, and any solutions will cost money - more taxes for better policing and facilities, higher costs for bus operators for improved security, etc.
A particular conundrum for bus operators is that these areas are often, in other respects, the best bus operating territory. I seem to recall that in the days of the W&D/Badger Vectis competition, the Turlin Moor route was subject to intense competition.
RC 169 "...A particular conundrum for bus operators is that these areas are often, in other respects, the best bus operating territory."
In those cases does that apply to evening services as well as the daytime ones? Are there possible ways to serve the area without the need to pass through the real danger zone(s)? Fewer would be able to cliam that the greedy co had let them down.
Anonymous said...
"In those cases does that apply to evening services as well as the daytime ones? Are there possible ways to serve the area without the need to pass through the real danger zone(s)? Fewer would be able to cliam that the greedy co had let them down."
I understand your thinking, but the answer will surely vary according to the geography (physical, economic and social) of the area concerned. I recall that some years ago there were some incidents of buses being struck by air gun pellets while travelling along an arterial road in the western suburbs of Southampton - if the buses were withdrawn from that road, then people in the adjacent residential areas would be a long way from any service.
In my experience most services that are busy during the daytime are also relatively busier during evenings/Sundays - logically really, given that it is usually population density and socio-economic factors that influence the level of bus use. Whether the evening services are actually remunerative is perhaps another matter, and it would no doubt be true to say that less people would be affected if services at those times were withdrawn. However, it is sometimes said that withdrawal of services at unremunerative times of day is a 'nail in the coffin' of the service as a whole - if people need to have access to a car for journeys in the evenings, then they will probably use it in the daytime as well.
In any case, the incident in question happened at 18:45, which is not long after the evening peak, and certainly not 'late night'.
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