BUS users will be introduced to a new method of payment for their journeys on Monday next when Dublin Bus implements a pilot scheme to reduce the number of robbery related assaults on drivers.
Customers on tour routes will have to ensure they have the exact fare in coins or else buy prepaid, multi journey tickets, already available at over 200 shops throughout the city.
"AutoFare", a coin only system already successful in major British cities, eliminates the handling of cash by bus drivers. Passengers boarding the bus simply drop the exact fare in coins into a fares box.
The driver checks that enough money has been inserted for the journey required, presses a button, and a ticket for the value presented is automatically issued. The machines do not handle notes.
"AutoFare" will operate on the following routes No 17A from Finglas to Kilbarrack, No 18 from Sandymount Green to Ballyfermot, No 40 between Parnell Square and Finglas, and No Ill from Dun Laoghaire DART Station to Loughlinstown Park.
The Dublin Bus press officer, Mr Joe Collins, said where customers did not have the exact fare, a larger amount would be required. "For example, a passenger who has deposited two £1 coins in the machine for a £1.10 journey ticket will receive the ticket and a change receipt for 90p. Refund of over payments will be made at Dublin Bus headquarters at 59 Upper O'Connell Street, and must be accompanied by both the journey and change tickets."
The deterrent to would be thieves is that the cash disappears immediately into an under floor safe to which the driver has no access. Mr Collins said that drivers on the selected routes would be prohibited from handling any cash at all.
The company is hopeful that the new scheme, which will be extended to other routes if trials are successful, will play a major part in reducing the number of attacks on its staff. Latest figures show that 115 drivers the highest number ever are currently on sick leave following assaults. This is twice the figure for the corresponding period last year.
The NBRWU and SIPTU, who represent Dublin bus crews, have been demanding a cashless system for many years as an answer to the spiralling number of attacks in which drivers have been stabbed, injured with hatchets, beaten up or threatened with syringes, usually for relatively small sums of money.
Night services on some routes have been curtailed regularly following assaults on crews.
Security screens and on board video cameras, together with under floor safes into which drivers handling money make regular deposits, have gone some way towards protecting bus workers. However the unions and drivers argue that the presence of any cash is a continual attraction to thieves.
Dublin Bus has been moving towards a cashless system by urging customers to buy pre paid tickets but feels that until such a pattern becomes universally acceptable, "AutoFare" is seen as the most likely answer to the problem.
Trials with the new machines involving 90 buses will take place over the next few months and the company says an early decision will be made on whether to extend it to other routes. "This exercise is designed to promote a secure and uninterrupted bus service to the people of Dublin and its environs and we are appealing to everyone to support the pilot project," Mr Collins said.