By Liu Chen of RNZ

An Auckland bus driver says he is “traumatised” after an abusive incident on Monday evening, calling for more de-escalation training and protection for drivers.

Henry Liu was driving a route 70 bus from Britomart to Botany when a woman got on board and started using some racist slurs.

At a stop near Auckland University, the woman began to count Asian passengers, Liu said.

“I already felt something was wrong at that time, and I picked up our company’s intercom and reported it to our dispatcher,” he told RNZ.

Liu asked the dispatcher to call police.

The woman moved around the bus, engaging in verbal and physical confrontations with two passengers, Liu said.

Liu disembarked the bus, opened the rear door and advised passengers to leave while he continued to request police assistance.

He said the woman left the bus and walked to another bus servicing a different route. Other passengers were picked up by a subsequent route 70 bus.

Police then arrived at the scene, he said.

Inspector Grant Tetzlaff, area commander for Auckland Central, said police had received reports of a woman being verbally abusive towards two passengers, adding that the woman may have struck the pair.

“Police are making follow-up inquiries to identify this woman, including obtaining CCTV footage,” he said. “As part of this, we would also like to hear from the two passengers who the woman hit during the incident.

Still image taken from video showing racist, violent rant on Auckland bus route 70 on Park Rd, Grafton.

“We ask that anyone with further information that can assist our inquiries contact police.”

Liu told RNZ he had to take a day off work after the “shocking” incident.

“I feel traumatised because it’s not the New Zealand I expected,” he said. “I have been in New Zealand for about 10 years... It seemed that this kind of things rarely happened a few years ago but it has become more commonplace.”

He said the incident had similarities with an attack on a bus in late June that left a 16-year-old Chinese teenager with severe facial injuries.

The driver expressed concern about his personal safety, particularly at night and over the weekend when there was a higher chance of encountering drunk or unruly passengers.

Liu said employers needed to offer drivers training on how to respond in such circumstances.

“I think drivers should be trained for some basic self-defence skills and how to de-escalate the situation because we haven’t been trained for that kind of situation apart from [being told] not to engage with the offender and to call the police using our radio [through the dispatcher],” he said.

Rachel Cara, public transport operations group manager at Auckland Transport, said the organisation was aware of the incident and was assisting police with their investigations.

“Fortunately, most public transport customers are respectful of others, but these isolated incidents are concerning,” she said.

“People have a right to travel on our network without being subjected to this type of unacceptable behaviour.”

Cara said drivers were trained with de-escalation techniques as part of their induction and had been instructed to avoid getting into confrontational situations that could escalate.

“We continue to work closely with police, other agencies and communities to improve safety on public transport and there was a big focus on this over the school holidays,” she said.

Measures to improve safety on public transport included deploying transport officers to hubs; installing CCTV, GPS and panic buttons; retrofitting protective screens; working more closely with the police at “hot spot” locations; extra police resourcing; and improving the reporting process.

“Our bus drivers work tirelessly to keep Aucklanders moving and deserve to feel safe in their place of work,” Cara said. “We are doing everything possible to ensure this is the case.

“We will be retrofitting screens for 80% of the bus fleet over the next two years. We’ll work with bus operators to confirm designs for the different bus types within the fleet.”

Liu called on AT to install protective screens on buses faster, asking for more transport officers to be available to help manage safety.

First Union organiser Neil Chapman said there was a lack of health and safety training in the industry.

“I think a lot of employees, particularly in this industry, are avoiding the hard question of how we protect ourselves when confronted with violent assault or even physical assault, abuse ... those types of anti-social behaviour,” he said.

Chapman said self-defence training was important for frontline workers such as bus drivers and staff working in retail and banking.

He said safety features such as protective screens and emergency buttons should be installed on all buses.

“We think there needs to be a long, hard look at some sort of security on the bus,” he said.

- RNZ