Jonathan Welch speaks to Stagecoach East about its membership of the Businesses Against Abuse partnership in Cambridgeshire, which goes much deeper than just a liveried bus
I was in Cambridge for an entirely different reason, but as is often the case, one conversation leads to another, and I was invited to take a sneak peak before its launch at a newly-liveried bus hidden inside Stagecoach’s depot in the university city. At first glance, it could be mistaken for another advertising or promotional colour scheme, but in fact its importance is much deeper than that.
Only last week, Adrian Morton reported in our pages from the Women in Bus and Coach summit in Manchester, where much is being done to highlight some of the often invisible difficulties women face in the workplace. The other side of that same coin is the very sad fact that women are still often subjected to harassment and worse outside the workplace, as they go about their everyday lives. It’s something that shouldn’t happen, but is all too common, from the severe to low-level ‘microagressions’ and including things which many people might not even be aware of.
With that in mind, and picking up on a trend in the retail and hospitality industries to provide ‘safe spaces’ for people in need (and it’s probably important to say that although primarily, it is not exclusively women), Stagecoach East has joined the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough ‘Businesses Against Abuse’ partnership. The company says its buses will be places of refuge for people fearing that they will be subject to abusive behaviour, thanks to the partnership with Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Police Authority and the Cambridge and Peterborough Rape Crisis Centre to join the Businesses Against Abuse (BAA) scheme.
Enhanced safeguards
Under the scheme, the operator’s existing safeguarding procedures are being enhanced with additional training: drivers are being trained not just to recognise people who are in vulnerable situations either on or off the bus, something that most, if not all, might be aware of anyway, but crucially they are being given guidance in how to offer help in the most appropriate way. This might include that, if a driver recognises that a women or girl may be in fear of abuse on the street, they are authorised to pull over and ask if they need help and then take her to a safe place on route if necessary. Likewise, if a driver recognises that a passenger is in fear of abuse, they have been given a range of options to help. Referred to as ‘the five D’s’ they include delegating, by involving others, distracting, and delaying until it is safe to challenge.
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