THE Safer Travel Partnership has launched a dedicated team to tackle non-compliance of face masks on public transport.
The multi-agency team are now deployed to bus stations across the West Midlands to ensure passengers are wearing face coverings on their journeys unless they are exempt.
Reported compliance levels are continuing to remain high, typically around 90 per cent but now resources can be focused in areas that have recorded lower compliance levels.
The team aims to use the four E’s approach to mask covering compliance: engage, explain, encourage and enforce; and figures show that passengers are responding well to initial officer engagement with high numbers of passengers putting on a mask when they’re advised to.
Since the beginning of October when the task force was created, the dedicated team have advised more than 5,500 passengers to wear a face covering correctly (covering both the nose and mouth) and have given out approximately 1,300 masks which have been donated by Transport for West Midlands.
Safer Travel have also issued six Fixed Penalty Notices (FPNs) of £200 to passengers for refusing to wear a face covering.
