Passengers want 'clippies' to return

Feb 9 2007 By Ben Hurst, Birmingham Mail

BRING back the 'clippies' and we'll get back on the buses!

That's the message from Birmingham Mail readers when asked what would encourage them to use the buses more often.

An incredible 45 per cent of people who answered our exclusive survey put it in their top three changes they'd most like to see.

The clippies call revealed in the survey results was one echoed yesterday by grandmother Stella Bush-Payne who called for conductors back on the buses because she felt unsafe on her afternoon trips to church.

Yesterday the Birmingham Mail revealed how much anti-social behaviour passengers have to endure on the region's buses - 36.8 per cent said they had seen regular attacks on drivers, and a shocking 45.7 per cent see regular drug-taking.

West Midlands public transport coordinator Centro-PTA chairman Coun Gary Clarke said: "I remember when we used to have conductors on the buses and it was absolutely brilliant."

Other key areas for improvement, according to Birmingham Mail readers, is reliability with 53.6 per cent of people calling for action, and cleanliness, highlighted by 47.7 per cent.

But one Birmingham-based passenger group said that the anti-social behaviour problem was now so bad that conductors would themselves just become targets.

Phil Tonks from Bus Users UK said: "I don't agree with the call to bring them back, in that people are thinking back to a different time and place 20-30 years ago.

"These days if you put a single conductor on their own on a bus, and had them doing things like collecting cash they will become a target.

"There are conductors on the Midland Metro and it has the effect of them being targeted by those committing anti-social behaviour."

A spokesman for the Transport and General Workers' Union added: "I can certainly understand why people want to see the return of conductors because they are a reassuring presence and it is useful to have someone in uniform on the bus.

"But they can add to the problem in other ways, such as if someone wants to have a pop at someone in uniform. What we need is more effective and visible policing."

Phil Bateman, from Travel West Midlands, the region's top bus operator, said he believed the days of conductors were gone, and they now used a number of other tactics.

He said: "Different tactics to combat drug use on our services have been used. We have deployed the police drug dog on the bus, and other arrests have been brought about following intelligence that we have passed onto our partners.

"But this is an issue we cannot deal with alone. The call from some of your readers for the return of those halcyon days of the bus conductor is just not an option in today's modern world."