Protective walls will be installed around the driving positions of 400 buses at the De Lijn depot in Hasselt, the Flemish public transport company announced on Thursday.
This was one of the measures agreed at a round table discussion on the safety of De Lijn staff, following several cases of assault on bus drivers in the Limburg province.
Verbal and physical abuse of De Lijn staff has been a problem for some time. In 2022, the company recorded 338 physical assaults on drivers and controllers. As well as causing suffering and work incapacity, this situation has led to several strike actions by staff and unions.
On 11 July, a round table resulted in a ten-point action plan to improve driver and controller safety. One of these points relates to ensuring safe driving positions in all existing vehicles.
De Lijn's most recently manufactured buses are already equipped with closed driving positions. Protective walls are therefore now being installed on older vehicles. As the transport company's fleet of buses comes from different manufacturers, a wall prototype needed to be developed and adapted to each vehicle model.
