BEST PRACTICES Birmingham, Alabama Dale Knutson, UR OPERATOR PHYSICAL ASsaults have been at a minimum. BJCTA has an off -duty police force that, during morning and evening rush hours, ride two routes each weekday. Th eir presence deters many people from doing anything physically to an operator. If a customer does try to get physical with an operator, either on the bus or at our Central Station, we have a trespassing policy that is used to ban the customer from either the Central Station area, the route or the system, depending on the severity of their actions. We work with our off -duty offi cers who arrest the person, and escort them off the property. Again, uniformed police presence has deterred some of the potential assaults. Verbal assaults, however are a diff erent thing, and we spend some time in the classroom doing roleplaying how to react to those types of situations. We want to try to stop any physical assaults by teaching the operators the proper way to react to any verbal assaults. We spend class time playing the video tape of an actual verbal assault, and, at various parts, stop the tape and ask the new students, “What would (or should) you say?” Our instructors then continue the tape and show the students what the seasoned operator did say, and then discuss whether or not it was a proper response. Our philosophy at BJCTA is that the customer never starts an argument with an operator. It is the operator’s response to 44 | Mass Transit | MassTransitmag.com | APRIL/MAY 2017 TSSP Manager of Safety, Training and Security Birmingham Jefferson County Transit Authority (BJCTA) what the customer says that can, and often will start a confrontation, which could lead to further issues, including physical assault. It’s not that we think that the operator is “at fault” during every verbal confrontation — quite the opposite. We do believe, however, that how the operator reacts to what is said will make the diff erence between a good interaction and a potentially dangerous one. Example: When a passenger gets on the bus with a Styrofoam cup of hot coff ee, and the operator needs to tell the passenger that the coff ee is not allowed on the bus, we teach the operator to start the sentence with “the issue” (the cup of coff ee) — not “the person” (You). In other words, “Th at coff ee is not allowed on the bus” is a lot better than “You can’t bring that on the bus.” Th is takes time to learn, but once it is learned by our operators, they attest to the fact that it helps a great deal when it comes to deterring negative and potentially dangerous situations. PROPANE AUTOGAS Reduce: Fuel Costs Maintenance Costs Total Operating Costs Ford E-450 450 6.8L V10 10 800.59.ROUSH ROUSHcleantech.com For more information, visit www.MassTransitmag.com/12078201 For more information, visit www.MassTransitmag.com/10278430 O
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