Bus drivers’ union says most assaults go unreported as Adelaide’s most dangerous bus routes are revealed

Bus drivers say their fears are being ignored and that the real number of violent passenger attacks is even higher than frightening new figures show. See the worst routes.

Urgent safety reforms are needed to protect South Australian bus drivers, the union says, as the number of drivers attacked over the last two years is revealed.

The Advertiser can reveal, through Freedom of Information documents, there were a reported 41 assaults on bus drivers in April 2020-21, compared with 47 in the same time frame the previous year.

But the Transport Workers Union warns the true number is much higher.

“There are probably hundreds (of assaults) going unaccounted because drivers … don’t feel like their voice is being heard,” TWU SA branch secretary Ian Smith said.

“Actual figures that we have … that’s about a drop in the ocean of what’s actually happening.

The union wants the State Government to update bus control units to improve driver safety, including geo-tracking where assaults happen and increased security on problem bus routes.

“There is a crisis across on our bus network where we have out of control behaviour from the travelling public and there’s nothing being done to stop it,” Mr Smith said.

Most assaults from April 2019-2021 – six out of 88 – were on the G10 route from Marion Interchange to Blair Athol.

Other top problem routes were the 506 Tea Tree Plaza-City bus, where five assaults on drivers occurred, the 228 Smithfield-City bus, with four assaults, the 721 Noarlunga-City bus, recording three assaults and the J2 Greenwith-Adelaide Airport bus which saw three assaults.

Transport Workers Union branch secretary Ian Smith. Picture: Roy Vandervegt

The figures do not reflect assaults on passengers, including a woman who was indecently assaulted on the G10 bus route on May 10 this year. A police investigation is ongoing.

They also do not reflect a terrifying incident in June last year, when Karen Margaret Ryan allegedly set alight a teenager’s hair on a northern suburbs bus.

In a TWU SA survey conducted last June, 40 per cent of respondents felt their job had become more dangerous, while almost nine per cent said they had been assaulted.

Mr Smith said the system for reporting assaults needed to be improved and that bus driver protection should be proactive not reactive.

“The biggest issue that we see within the network is a lack of reporting ease for drivers to be able to report anti-social behaviour that is being directed to them,” he said.

“We need to get to a point that we’re using the things that identify the problem routes and problem times, then have the resources in the form of security or police available to ride those routes, or at those interchanges, at the times when it’s at its worst.

Transport Minister Corey Wingard said the department was working on a project that would add instant messaging to bus control panels, including emergency call and vandalism options.

“Bus drivers provide a vital service to the community and are entitled to feel safe in their working environment,” Mr Wingard said.

“The state government takes the safety and security of our bus drivers extremely seriously and condemns any kind of abuse or violence towards drivers or public transport users.”

The plea comes as police call for witnesses to an alleged attack on a bus at Daw Park this week.

Police were called to Goodwood Road at about 4.30pm on Monday after reports two women were abusing a driver and damaging a ticket screen.

Two 21-year-old Cumberland Park women were arrested, with one allegedly spitting at police.

The women were charged with two counts of aggravated assault, property damage, disorderly behaviour and assaulting a prescribed emergency worker.