Passengers have said they welcome the introduction of security on Dublin Bus as part of a pilot programme.
Two dedicated security teams are being rolled out this week in a bid to make bus journeys safer and more secure for passengers.
The 20-week pilot programme will see one team operating on the north side of the city and another on the south.
Speaking to Josh Crosbie for The Hard Shoulder, these passengers said they think it's the right move.
"Most of the time I'd feel safe, but there are occasions where there would be a lot of drug use and stuff on the bus and people getting on that would be shouting and roaring," one woman said.
"So yeah, I do think it's a good idea."
A man said he thinks it should have happened long before now.
"It's a good thing because they do carry on too much now," he said.
"Years ago when I was younger you got drunk but now they're taking drugs on drinking - they don't know what they're doing.
"They should have been on a long time ago".
Another woman said she's had first-hand experience of feeling unsafe.
"There's always drunk people being very aggressive for no reason [towards] everyone in general, not only me," she said.
What will they do?
Dublin Bus CEO Billy Hann told Josh the Safer Journeys Team will have three main roles.
"The first role will be hopping on and hopping off the buses and trying to address any concerns or issues that either our employees or our customers have around anti-social behaviour on any given route," he said.
"The second function will be to assist our Revenue Protection Officers in our fare evasion inspections.
"The third duty is to assist Dublin Bus staff when they are loading passengers on our night-time services - particularly on Friday night and Saturday night - in certain areas of the city.
"It can get very busy and difficult for the bus driver to try and manage the crowd control in and around the buses".
'What we're seeing on the streets'
Mr Hann said the rise in anti-social behaviour is one of the main reasons for the rollout.
"In 2019 we had around 500 anti-social behaviour instances or just below that," he said.
"When I looked at the figures in 2023 it's 1,033 - so it's effectively doubled in five years.
"There's been feedback from our employees that they're seeing an increase in the rate of anti-social behaviour on the buses - also feedback from our customers themselves that they're seeing an increase.
"I suppose that's indicative of what we're seeing on the streets of Dublin and that's leaking onto the transport network".
Mr Hann said they plan to roll it out on a full-time basis.
"We'll introduce it, we'll look at a couple of key measures - are the number of incidents gone down? Are the severity of those incidents gone down? Is the feedback from our customers positive? Is the feedback from our staff positive?
"If that all stacks up then we will have to go looking for additional funding from the National Transport Authority to roll this out on a full-time basis".
Mr Hann added that his "gut feeling is that it will be a success".
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