Faced with the growing threat of bus drivers boycotting routes in Brisbane, the Queensland government has vowed to spend $60.7 million over the next five years to improve public transport safety.
The move has come after the Rail Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) began urging bus drivers to boycott bus routes to Inala and Forest Lake after dark from Thursdays to Sundays, over concerns about the risk to the Brisbane City Council employees.
The RTBU said a rock was recently thrown through the window of one bus and drivers have told of being swarmed by up to a dozen people, being spat on and having human faeces thrown on them.
Transport and Main Roads Minister Mark Bailey said more safety barriers between passengers and bus drivers would be installed, and extra network officers would begin patrolling public transport services.
The cost of the bus driver barriers would come to almost $4 million.
Mr Bailey said new network officers would operate on public transport networks where they were most needed, while police would increase their focus on public transport services in the Brisbane metropolitan area.
"Our new network officer strategy will provide an overwhelming increase to our frontline transport force that will create about 100 new ongoing, full-time jobs," he said.
The initial phase of the program will add 29 network officers on the Gold Coast, Logan and the Sunshine Coast.
Another 50 network officers would be added across the network in the second year of the program.
Police would also be tasked with assisting TransLink staff.
Network officers are to be given more powers to enforce conditions of travel and issue infringement notices, including fines, for public transport offences.
Recruitment for the first wave of new network officers will begin next month.
Bus driver barriers are now mandatory in Queensland for all new urban fleet buses on the Translink network, an initiative of the government's bus driver safety review.
RTBU secretary Tom Brown welcomed the decision to install more full safety barriers on buses across the state, saying drivers had continued to feel unsafe since the killing of Manmeet Alisher on a bus in Moorooka in 2018.
"In the years since Manmeet was killed while at work, RTBU members have continued to face antisocial behaviour, personal abuse, verbal aggression and physical violence – none of that is acceptable," Mr Brown said.
"Report after report has found that the only way to keep drivers safe is to install fully encapsulated safety barriers."
