By Blessen Tom of RNZ
Violence towards drivers and passengers on public transport appears to be on the rise in the country’s largest city.
On Friday, a 16-year-old student received severe facial injuries following an attack by an unknown woman on an Auckland Transport bus in East Auckland.
A couple of months earlier, a man was charged with assault after punching and kicking a bus driver in the Auckland suburb of Ponsonby.
According to AT, attacks on bus drivers have more than doubled in the past two years.
While 24 fewer incidents were reported last year compared to 2022, there was an increase in reports of violence against bus drivers.
Data provided to RNZ in February showed that AT reported 24 assaults on bus drivers in 2022, ranging from minor to severe, along with more than 50 accounts of verbal abuse.
In 2023, AT reported 51 assaults and more than 120 verbal abuse cases.
Speaking at a meeting Wednesday with the teenage victim of last week’s attack in Auckland, Transport Minister Simeon Brown said he wanted to be assured that AT staff followed the proper protocols during the attack.
“Ultimately, this is unacceptable,” Brown said.
The transport agency has been battling a severe shortage of bus drivers since the emergence of Covid-19.
At the height of the crisis, the city was short 578 drivers out of the 2306 needed to maintain its network.
However, the issue was resolved in August last year, thanks to a recruitment drive that attracted drivers from overseas.”I had a passion for driving since my childhood,” said Giya Jose, 34, a bus driver for Kinetic NZ in Auckland.
Jose relocated to New Zealand after the operator recruited him from Kerala, India, last year.
With four years of experience driving trucks and buses in India, he was thrilled when he received the job offer.
“I came here alone at first, but then my wife got an open work visa, and my family is here now,” he said.
Jose initially struggled to learn the bus routes he was assigned but was able to familiarise himself with the roads with practice.
“It took me a while to learn the road codes and rules around roundabouts,” he said.
Harry Fernandez needed to learn to drive on the left-hand side to pass his competency tests, as road users in the Philippines drive on the opposite side.
Having worked as a bus driver in Manila, the 46-year-old arrived in Auckland in February 2023.
“We drive automatic transmission but, in Manila, it was manual,” he said.
Fernandez also initially struggled to navigate the routes he was assigned.
“One time I lost my way, so I apologized to my passengers, told them that I’m new in New Zealand, and they told me, ‘It’s okay’,” he recalled.
Jose has also struggled with language barriers on occasion, particularly understanding different accents.