Rajnish Trehan was attacked by a passenger who refused to pay his fare. Photo: Supplied
An Auckland bus driver is "badly shaken" after being punched in the face on the job on Saturday, leaving him with stitches and a broken tooth, a union says.
Rajnish Trehan had to receive stitches and will need dental work after being attacked by a passenger. Photo: Supplied
Rajnish Trehan was driving the number 18 bus in Avondale when he was attacked by a passenger who refused to pay his fare, Auckland Tramways Union president Gary Froggatt said.
"The driver told him to go and take a seat and as the driver was pulling out into traffic, he came up behind him and hit him in the face," Froggatt said.
The passenger also yelled racist abuse at Trehan, he said.
Trehan used the bus radio communications to alert the depot, who called the police and ambulance. An off-duty NZ Bus supervisor took Trehan back to the depot, but he had to call his wife to take him to hospital, which was "unfortunate", Froggatt said.
At Auckland Hospital Trehan got stitches on his chin, and he was referred to Middlemore Hospital for dental work, Froggatt said.
"He's badly shaken up, this is an unacceptable situation," he said.
"Just a few months ago, we really didn't have a great deal of assaults, but all of a sudden, for some reason, they've started to increase."
Earlier this year, RNZ reported attacks on Auckland bus drivers had more than doubled between 2022 and 2023.
Froggatt said Auckland Council had the budget for security screens in buses, but they were not being installed quickly enough.
"To date, we've had a look at some sample ones, but this thing seems to drag on and on and on," he said.
"I've been working on this for probably about 10 years and we still don't have security screens in the buses.
"That's unacceptable as well."
Drivers wanted assurance they would come home safe at the end of each shift, Froggatt said.
Auckland Transport said it was assisting police with the investigation, and the bus operator was supporting Trehan.
The isolated incident was "concerning", public transport operations group manager Rachel Cara said.
"Our bus drivers work tirelessly to keep Aucklanders moving and [they] deserve to feel safe in their place of work.
"We continue to work closely with police, other agencies and communities to improve safety on public transport."
Auckland Transport recently hired another 12 transport officers, installed CCTV, GPS and panic buttons on buses, and planned to install safety screens in 80 percent of buses over the next two years, Cara said.
"We are moving as quickly as possible on getting safety screens installed and will be able to share more detail on progress in the next few days."
Kinetic, which owns bus company NZ Bus, confirmed Trehan notified the operations centre about 10am Saturday that he had been assaulted by a passenger.
"As per our emergency protocols, our team immediately notified the police and ambulance service and sent out our support team to assist Mr Trehan and ensure he was safe and well looked after," a spokesperson said.
"The health and wellbeing of our people is very important to us, and we are assisting police with their investigation."
Police are investigating the assault, and want to hear from anyone who saw what happened.
Transport staff at risk in recent incidents
Auckland Transport's latest health, safety and wellbeing update for July 2024 detailed a number of cases where frontline staff were at risk.
In that month alone:
- A bus driver at Ōtāhuhu reported that a passenger came on board brandishing a knife and asked to be taken home. Passengers and the driver managed to take the knife off him, and no one was injured.
- Bottles were thrown at a bus driver at Waitākere City terminus.
- A red laser light was pointing to the ferry crew at Birkenhead ferry terminal, and the captain's "visibility was impaired" when docking.
- A man threw a steel bar towards a driver (but it did not hit him).
- A passenger was "continually swearing" at a driver, and then hit the driver on the head when he was asked to get off the bus.
- At Māngere station a group of youths on the bus were blocking both doors, and when driver instructed them to get off, one of them punched the driver.
Five events in July were classified as "critical risks" and all related towards violence towards staff, the document said.
"Violence towards staff continues to trend as the most reported PT [public transport] critical risk events representing 65 percent of the total (84 out of 130) in the period August 2023 to July 2024," it said.