Calendar aims to tackle €300,000 bus vandalism

BUS Éireann in Limerick is tackling vandalism to its fleet with the help of a calendar.

The company has to spend up to €150,000 a year to replaced broken glass on its buses in Limerick.

With down time for repairs and other damage such as graffiti and torn seats, the total cost is running at around €300,000 in the city service.

Bus driver Ger Doran has begun an education programme to impress on young people that the bus service is there for them and their families.

And he has compiled a collection of drawings and poems from pupils attending 25 city schools on the theme ‘It’s our bus don’t vandalise it’.

The drawings and poems have been included in a special Limerick Bus Éireann calendar and 5,000 copies are being distributed to schools throughout the city.

Ger, who has been a Bus Éireann driver for ten years, said: “Last September I started going around to the primary schools talking to the kids in fourth, fifth and sixth classes. We showed them a video and explained the huge cost of repairing vandalised buses.

“There is also the added loss of down time when a bus is being repaired. And we tell them that when a bus is vandalised there is a loss of service to people in their own area, their own families and elderly people who may be their own grandparents.”

Bus Éireann area manager Miriam Flynn said they have got very positive feedback and the calendar is early proof of this.

She said: “But it is down the line in months and years to come we feel it will yield significant dividends when these school children grow older.”

Bus services have been suspended on a number of Limerick city routes due to repeated attacks on vehicles. In most instances rocks were thrown at bus windows.

The single biggest cost is replacing broken bus windows, at €150,000 this year.

Ger Doran, who is also Limerick branch chairman of the National Bus and Rail Workers Union, said they had a great response to the art and poetry competition and they were amazed at the imaginative art work.