Feeling safe on the bus: West Midlands considers new byelaws  

16 January 2019

It’s good to see some earlier work undertaken by Transport Focus still making a difference.

Back in 2011, partly as a result of identifying anti-social behaviour as an issue in the annual Bus Passenger Survey, we did some further work on what passengers feel and think about the issue.

The findings from that work suggested that the most irritating and upsetting forms of anti-social behaviour are relatively low level ones – feet on seats, loud music and eating hot food.

These findings were confirmed in later work done on this issue in the West Midlands.

So, it’s encouraging to learn West Midlands Combined Authority has decided on more visible enforcement by bringing in specific byelaws dealing with this issue on the buses. This change will ensure rules for bus travel move into line with rail and tram. This should make it easier to enforce and deter poor behaviour on the bus network.