No Smoking Please!

There have been a number of prosecutions of late where bus passengers have been hauled before the courts for smoking whilst on board buses operated by Travel West Midlands. These prosecutions have resulted in large fines and costs being awarded against the person identified as smoking.Phil Bateman Divisional Corporate Affairs Director said today " These incidents of people smoking on board our vehicles are taken very seriously. All passenger complaints are investigated and bus routes and services where this behaviour takes place regularly, is passed to our Operation Safer Travel co-ordinator who then will analyse the information.It is in this way that the bus operator can get to understand the routes where there is persistent infringement of the bus regulations. It is this analysis that has recently resulted in a passenger first brought to our attention by customer complaints, being identified following a covert operation on a bus service in Wolverhampton to catch him in the act.This bus user who would not stop smoking despite requests from other bus users will now be prosecuted.I want to appeal to our customers to ensure that they stay within the law, we do prosecute passengers caught infringing transport regulations. We now have quite an array of CCTV on our buses that help create positive identifications and aid lawyers in the court room.Please be aware that when travelling on a Travel West Midlands service there is no smoking allowed."

Published 28th January 2005