Cincinnati Looking to Protect Bus Drivers and Stop Assaults

The city is looking into adding plexiglass dividers between drivers and riders to cut down on assaults.

• By Sydny Shepard
• Aug 21, 2018

Over the last two years, 12 bus drivers in Cincinnati have been assaulted while doing their job, according to data obtained by The Enquirer via public-records request. In 2016 there was only three, the number tripled in 2017 to nine.

City officials are now trying to figure out how they can protect these drivers from being assaulted by frustrated, angry riders.

The Metro is looking at installing new high-impact plexiglass barriers between drivers and the passengers they ferry. A prototype shown on August 2, showed the barriers to local drivers, but they collectively decided it was too small - not offering enough protection - and was not retractable, so drivers would not have the option to take it down if they wanted.

The Metro will continue to look for more options.

This is more than a Cincinnati issue with the national Transit Authority Committee for Safety reporting 28 transit workers died due to violence on the job. Eighty-one percent of over assaults on transit workers are verbal, according to the data, 60 percent involve spit and two percent involve weapons.

Many other cities across the United States use the plexiglass barriers and believe they help to keep violence from occurring. The barriers are also very popular in the U.K., as well.