Every year, employees of Flemish public transport operator De Lijn report more than 2,000 incidents of workplace aggression for review. Currently, this task falls to just three specific staff members.
Drivers and ticket inspectors face frequent hostility on the job: over 300 cases of physical violence and 1,700 verbal arguments occur each year, Gazet van Antwerpen reports.
Previous to cuts, there was a single member responsible for each Flemish province. However, now only a trio of workers seem to manage all of the reports. ACV, the public transport union, now warns that the impending bodycam rollouts will push workloads past breaking point.
Addressing the Flemish Parliament, An Christiaens (CD&V) publicly questioned the staffing levels. "If you really see safety as a priority, you must also invest in the resources needed for it," she said.
Officially titled 'social safety experts', the three workers operate under a strict division of labour: two split regional responsibilities across Flanders, while the third acts as a general coordinator.
Extracting evidence demands significant field work. When law enforcement requests camera footage, an expert must physically board the specific bus on which an incident took place, pull data from its hard drive, compile a summary report, and forward the package to police.
Upcoming policy shifts of wearing bodycams can worsen this. The trio will retain exclusive authorisation to extract this new visual data, forcing processing times and workload to grow even further. This will force the slowdown of police work too.
Flemish Mobility Minister Annick De Ridder (N-VA) has pushed back against the union's claims. She stated her administration tackles aggression through prevention and aftercare measures, including lockable driving cabins, vehicle camera surveillance, and issuing transit bans for offenders.
"Besides the employees specifically dealing with social safety, the overall picture is much more nuanced," De Ridder said. "There are many other colleagues involved in that approach."
