Extra security on Breda buses after armed robbery

By Janene Pieters on May 12, 2016 - 11:00
Arriva
. (Arriva / Wikipedia)

Bus drivers in Breda went on strike for a short time on Thursday morning after a colleague was robbed on Wednesday night. The bus drivers demanded that transporter Arriva takes measures to prevent such incident. Arriva agreed to hire additional security staff immediately and start a test with cashless payments as soon as possible, Omroep Brabant reports.

A female Avirra bus driver was attacked, threatened and robbed by a man armed with a knife on Wednesday night. The woman was driving bus 4 on Cornelis Florisstraat in Breda when the man - Caucasian, balding and around the age of 50 - attacked. She was not injured.

The spontaneous bus strikes tarted at around 6:30 a.m. on Thursday and lasted for around an hour. During this time the bus drivers and Arriva talked about the security problems on buses. Arriva agreed that security guards will be posted on all night buses and that there will be a test on card-only payments. Similar measures were implemented in Tilburg late last month. "We will do the test as quickly as possible in Breda", Arriva spokesperson Roos Zevenboom said to the broadcaster.

"We understand that emotions are running hig. That makes sense and we understand that very well", Susan van Beek of Arriva said. "It is of course annoying for the bus drivers, but also for us as a company. What happened on Wednesday again shows that there is need to remove cash from the bus as soon as possible."

Increasing violence on buses has been a problem in several places in the Netherlands over the past months. Amsterdam transporter GVB also plans to implement cashless payments on the city's buses from September.

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