Opinion: Safety is a right, not a privilege. Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) in the bus industry

Buses and trains are lifelines that connect people to work, education, healthcare, and their loved ones. But for too many women and girls, their journeys are clouded by fear. Whether that’s fear of harassment, abuse, or violence, it is unacceptable.

At the Rail Delivery Group’s ‘Safer Journeys’ Conference, which focussed on tackling Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG), Simon Lightwood MP reminded us: “Safety is not a privilege. It is a right.” Public transport should be a place of freedom, and as Andrea Simon of the Ending VAWG Coalition said: “Everyone should occupy space on the same terms.”

At First Bus, we are working hard to change both the perception and the experience of safety on public transport. So why should tackling VAWG matter, and why within transport in particular?

VAWG is not an abstract issue. Sadly, VAWG incidents occur in many parts of our society every day, including on public transport networks. We know that women are statistically more likely to rely on buses for short, frequent journeys. Yet, they are also more vulnerable to harassment in the very spaces that should give them independence.

It was at the Rail Delivery Group’s Conference that I was struck by the scale of the problem, both within transport and beyond. Data published by the National Police Chiefs’ Council in July 2024 found that over one million VAWG-related crimes were recorded by the police in the year 2022/23, which is equal to about 3,000 offences each day. Let that sit with you for a minute… One in twelve women are affected each year. And we could assume VAWG instances to be higher, given underreporting and challenges with fragmented data.

At the same conference, the audience heard powerful accounts from writer Laura Bates and journalist Michelle Theil about their personal experiences of VAWG on public transport. These encounters have fundamentally altered their relationship with transport. It made me question: How many women are changing their travel behaviours, or avoiding some trips altogether? How many young women are choosing to drive a car, to avoid feeling unsafe on public transport? And when these decisions are taken by women, what does this do to their social life, productivity, or available spending money? To guarantee their safety, what are women losing out on?

First Bus is taking preventative steps to avoid situations such as those recalled by Laura Bates and Michelle Theil. We’ve partnered with Strut Safe, a volunteer-run phone service offering reassurance to anyone traveling home alone. To extend its reach, we’re promoting it across 2,200 buses nationwide and funding longer operating hours, so that more people can access support late at night and on weekends.

At both the Rail Delivery Group’s Conference and the recent UK Bus Summit, a consistent message on tackling VAWG focussed on workplace culture. Ruth Cadbury MP challenged the audience: “The measure of change has to start with the way employees behave towards each other. Let’s get this sorted in the mess room.”

The Bus Services Bill proposes mandatory training to tackle VAWG. At First Bus, we are already investing in such training, to complement our longstanding zero-tolerance policies for harassment. We’re proudly White Ribbon accredited, reflecting our commitment to ending violence against women and girls. This means we give sustained focus to training our colleagues to challenge harmful behaviour, to raising community awareness of the impact of VAWG on public transport, and to fostering a culture of respect and accountability across our colleague base. With time, every colleague across First Bus’ national operation will be trained to understand VAWG, and to intervene safely.

As Laura Shoaf, former Chief Executive of the West Midlands Combined Authority, put it: “What you walk by is what you accept.” This principle must guide us in every depot, at every bus stop, and with every customer interaction. Leadership is not confined to the boardroom, but instead it exists wherever colleagues set the tone for others; Trade unions, peer influencers, and depot leaders all play vital roles in shifting norms.

We can accelerate the shifting of norms by connecting the topics of VAWG and diversity. In fact, VAWG and diversity collide at certain touchpoints within our organisations, such as within staff training. We must equip bus drivers to recognise and report VAWG, but in an industry where male colleagues outnumber female colleagues 7 to 1, is the female experience sufficiently represented within training materials? How can we equip our heavily male workforce to recognise the signs and symptoms of an issue that they’re less likely to have experienced?

At First Bus, we are focussing on improving colleague representation to ensure our decision-making and policies more successfully reflect the lived experiences of our majority customer base. Our diversity commitments are bold. By 2028, First Bus will double the number of women in our workforce and ensure 40% of senior leadership roles are held by women.

Looking beyond First Bus at the wider industry, I recently spoke at the UK Bus Summit about the great opportunity that bus reform offers the transport industry. Speaking in my role as Chair of the Northern region of Women in Bus and Coach, I asked of the audience to ensure that, in our mutual push for more reliable, integrated transport, we also tackle the deeper, systemic issues within our industry such as workforce diversity and VAWG incidents.

Bus franchising gives us the chance to hardwire equity and safety into performance measures. I have called for diversity performance data and VAWG strategy to be part of franchising bid processes, ensuring progress is not lost when operators change within geographies. Equally, I urge local and combined authorities to require clear and regular diversity data from franchised operators or through existing Enhanced Partnerships. Data transparency allows us to turn numbers into action, identifying where interventions are most needed.

More widely, one of the largest opportunities in our midst is transport integration. Four billion bus journeys are made each year in the UK, alongside 2.8 billion rail journeys. Many rail journeys start with a bus journey, and so tackling VAWG cannot happen in silos. Collaboration across modes is essential if we are to ensure end-to-end safety.

There are promising examples to build on within transport and beyond. The ‘In Your Shoes’ campaign at Transport for Wales allows leaders to experience the realities of travelling as a woman. We can also learn from campaigns that started outside our sector. In policing, the ‘HeForShe’ movement demonstrates the power of male allies, and ‘Ask for Angela’, designed for bars and clubs, can be adapted for buses.

Technology can also be part of the solution. Looking to the rail industry, Virtual Reality training for bystander intervention is helping railway staff build confidence to intervene when they see harassment. Body-worn cameras can reassure staff and deter aggressors. Beyond staff training, technology will help tackle VAWG in a more integrated way: Live facial recognition could enable ‘banned from one, banned from all’ schemes for perpetrators, to protect passengers across the whole transport network.

At First Bus, we are keen to adopt and adapt such ideas, and to share our own progress openly, so others can replicate it. We are strengthening reporting systems for both colleagues and passengers, ensuring microaggressions are captured and addressed before they escalate. And importantly, we are working with partners across transport, government, and communities to share data, best practice, and campaigns that tackle VAWG holistically.

We are taking the right steps forward, but the scale of the challenge is vast - it is multi-operator, and multi-modal. What’s important is that we have momentum. Government is listening. Campaigners are sharing powerful stories that cut through apathy. Operators and Authorities are mobilising.

At First Bus, we recognise our critical role in ensuring every journey is a safe journey, along with the importance of connecting workforce diversity with VAWG prevention and management. We ask the industry to do the same. Together, collaboratively, we can and must deliver a transport system where safety is a right, not a privilege.

**This article first appeared in Passenger Transport magazine in October 2025**