NSW Public Transport: shock number of bus drivers suspended in 2019
Hundreds of bus drivers had their authority to drive suspended or cancelled in the last year across NSW - find out why in our exclusive story.
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A shocking number of bus drivers across NSW have been suspended or banned from the roads in the last year.
A total of 1407 drivers had their authorities suspended in 2019, while 604 drivers saw their authorities cancelled altogether.
Transport for NSW has blamed the majority of suspensions on medical conditions and expired drivers licences.
However, the NSW Transport Workers' Union argued drivers were being wrongly disciplined for running late on timetables “they believe are not possible to meet” and blamed suspensions on issues in the bus industry caused by the NSW Government.
Transport Workers' Union NSW secretary, Richard Olsen, said the union was aware of significant pressures placed on bus drivers.
"The TWU can point to issues in the bus industry that leads to significant company pressure on drivers that relates to the squeeze the NSW Government places on operators managing the bus contracts," Mr Olsen said.
"The NSW Government has significant penalties for bus companies that do not meet targets, objectives and KPIs when they run the contracts for passenger services around NSW.
"The two most significant KPIs set by governments that can impact driver authorities are on time running – this leads to a time table based pressure on driving – and customer complaints.”
Mr Olsen said there were several reasons drivers are suspended, including driving offences, ongoing investigations and medical wellbeing issues.
A 2019 union bus driver survey found that drivers believe that pressure the government imposes on bus companies flows down to individual drivers.
"In our survey around three quarters of drivers believe that the NSW government tendering has left the bus industry in a worse state," the report revealed.
"Similarly, almost three quarters of drivers believe that the competitive tendering by the NSW government compromises passenger safety."
A Transport for NSW spokeswoman revealed that 166 drivers had their authority to drive cancelled in the last quarter of 2019, with the main reason for cancellations being "individuals voluntarily surrendering their authority".
The union said physical assaults against drivers remains a key issues.
"Drivers face regular abuse when enforcing Opal card rules," Mr Olsen said.
"Drivers face verbal abuse from passengers (and) a majority of drivers have felt threatened by the behaviour of passengers in the past year.”
A bus driver who did not wish to be named said they were disciplined for challenging students over Opal card, while another said customers with insufficient funds verbally abuse drivers when they are pulled up over it and threaten physical abuse.
There are currently 28,707 drivers and 10,150 public buses requiring a driver authority to operate.