Bus drivers get cages after attacks

The Public Transport Authority has installed security cages for drivers on 18 TransBunbury buses following safety concerns.

The Transport Workers Union demanded action from the State Government after a series of attacks on drivers earlier this year.

The most serious assault involved the alleged stabbing of a driver on April 2.

A Public Transport Authority spokeswoman said the installation of security cages on 18 buses had been expedited.

She said there were 30 buses at peak periods but some of them were used for school routes.

But the authority would not install cages on school buses because there had been no record of an assault on a school bus in Bunbury, she said.

Transport Workers Union WA bus industry organiser Phil Ogden said he was happy with the security cages but called for more security at the Bunbury bus station.

"It is good they have put the cages in - that is a positive step," Mr Ogden said.

The installation of cages in Bunbury buses comes despite authority managing director Mark Burgess telling a Budget estimates hearing in June he did not think cages were "a good look".

"I think if a tourist got on board a bus and saw a cage, that would not be ideal but it is where we have got to, I guess, as a society," Mr Burgess said.

"Certainly it all evolved from the incident with the bus driver who lost his eye in 2009.

"If we can avoid putting them into the country areas where, I will be frank, the level of incidents generally are very, very low, we would - but it is something we would obviously keep our eye on and if it is needed, we will do it."

In a letter to Transport Minister Dean Nalder in June, the union raised driver safety concerns and claimed there had been three attacks in three months in Bunbury.

"The Government and the Public Transport Authority have a duty of care to ensure the wellbeing and safety of bus drivers and the travelling public," union State secretary Tim Dawson said.