Action Against Assaults
RMT has longstanding concerns about the prevalence of violence and abuse on public transport, affecting both staff and passengers, with evidence from both transport workers and official statistics revealing that this is becoming more of a problem.
The extent of violence and abuse on public transport stems from a number of factors, including that crucially past decades have seen concerted efforts by transport operators and Governments to implement policies, such as Driver Only Operation and ticket office closures that significantly reduce staffing and have made lone working commonplace, putting both passengers and staff at risk. These attacks on staffing have been accompanied by a lack of action taken against perpetrators, insufficient support from many employers for staff who are victims, poor services arising from the fragmented and underfunded transport network and ongoing cuts to British Transport Police and police forces, meaning perpetrators often face insufficient deterrents for their unacceptable behaviour. Trends on public transport also clearly reflect wider societal trends in the prevalence of anti-social behaviour.
RMT Campaign – Action Against Assaults
In light of these concerns, the RMT National Executive Committee has agreed that violence and abuse on public transport will be a priority campaign for the Union for the coming period. The campaign, Action Against Assaults, is being launched at the RMT’s AGM in June 2025, and will be an RMT led industrial and political campaign covering all public transport workers where RMT organises, i.e. rail, bus, London Underground, metro, passenger ferry and taxi. The campaign will involve building coalitions with politicians, NGOs, the public and others to highlight the need for a safer public transport environment
to reduce violence against both workers and passengers and will also involve campaigning for additional legal protections for public transport workers.
Industrial
campaign
The industrial element of the campaign will be focussed on increasing employer action to reduce assaults at local, company and industry level, including ending lone working and minimising late-night working. This will involve supporting H&S reps and officers to effectively address these issues in the H&S machinery.
This part of the campaign will also involve work to establish effective arrangements in industry bodies, including the new GBR, to reduce assaults and violence.
Political
campaign
This part of the campaign will involve campaigning for a change in legislation to create a standalone offence of abusing or assaulting public transport workers, alongside building alliances with NGOs and other organisations such as women’s groups and disabled people’s organisations.
The Union will also be campaigning to protect and increase staffing levels and for a reversal of the cuts to BTP.
The scale of the problem - RMT survey
To support our campaigning activity, RMT recently undertook a new survey of our members working across public transport in rail, bus, London Underground, metro, passenger ferry and taxis to ask about their experiences of violence and abuse at work.
The survey of over 6000 public transport workers found that:
• Nearly two-thirds (63%) had experienced workplace violence in the past year.
• Of those, over 85% had experienced violence multiple times.
• The most common form of violence was verbal abuse (92%), followed by threats of violence or assault (63%).
• Nearly a quarter had been physically assaulted.
• Members also reported experiencing a wide range of abusive behaviour including being assaulted with weapons; racial harassment; sexual harassment or assault; LGBT+ harassment and being spat at or targeted with bodily fluids.
• Of those who experienced workplace violence, 60% were lone working at the time.
• Nearly 60% had witnessed violent and/or abusive behaviour targeted at passengers.
Comments included:
“I'vebeenspaton,shovedandpunched”
“Verbalassaultsarefrequentandextremelyaggressivebehaviourisincreasing”
“Sexualharassment,assaultedwithCO2Extinguisher,Verballyharassed,grabbedby passengers”
“Iwasstabbedwithaneedle!”
“Threatenedtobestabbedintheheadwithablade”
Further survey findings included:
• 75% of those who experienced workplace violence reported the incident to their employer, but only a third of those were satisfied with their employer’s response to the incident.
• Of those who did not report it, nearly 70% said it was because such incidents are considered ‘part of the job’.
• 70% of RMT members thought that workplace violence had increased in the past year, and just 3% thought it had decreased.
• When asked why they thought violence on public transport was so prevalent, members cited reasons including a lack of BTP/police presence; a lack of action taken against perpetrators; an increase in anti-social behaviour in society more generally and lone working.
• 95% of public transport workers support the creation of a standalone offence of abusing or assaulting public transport workers at work.
• 87% of members working in rail, metro and London Underground said that an increase of staff at stations and on trains would help reduce violence.
• Nearly 80% of RMT members said they would be prepared to take industrial action over workplace violence, if they felt their employer was not doing enough to protect their safety.
Assaults data
The experiences of RMT members are backed up by data. BTP statistics1 show between 2021 and 2024 there was a year-on-year increase of both violent and serious public order offences against rail staff. In 2024, there were 7027 offences against staff recorded in these categories, an increase of 2257 (47%) from 2021.
1 Paragraph 20 https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60726/documents/6491
During 2023/2024 Transport for London recorded 10,493 incidents of work-related violence and aggression, a 5% increase from the previous year.2
In its response3 to the Crime and Policing Bill Committee, the industry body, the Rail Delivery Group referenced a range of evidence highlighting the impact of violence and abuse on rail workers, including research by the RSSB from 2021 which found that the prevalence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in rail staff is more than double the rate in the general UK population.
It should be noted that it is far more difficult to ascertain official crime statistics relating to the rates of violence and abuse faced by non-rail public transport workers including those working in buses and ferries, because these sectors are policed by local forces, rather than the BTP, meaning crimes on these forms of public transport cannot be easily disaggregated. However, the Union is pressing for it to be a legal requirement to collate and publish statistics about violence on other forms of public transport, for instance through amendments to the Bus Services (No2) Bill currently in the House of Commons.
Amendment to the Crime and Policing Bill
Given the scale, and increasing prevalence, of the problem, RMT is calling for additional legal protections for public transport workers who are abused or assaulted at work. Strengthening legal protections would support workers in reporting incidents, deter perpetrators and improve the rate of action taken against perpetrators. In recognition of the risks they face as frontline workers, similar legislation already exists for emergency services workers, and in Scotland, where this is a devolved matter, legislation also exists for retail workers.
The UK Government has recognised the importance of strengthening legal protections for frontline workers and is using the Crime and Policing Bill, currently in the House of Commons, to create a new offence of assaulting a retail worker at work.
RMT developed a Parliamentary amendment with Rachael Maskell MP which seeks to create a specific offence of abusing or assaulting a public transport worker at work and extend the maximum sentence from six to twelve months.
In the Parliamentary debate on 18th June 2025, Rachael Maskell highlighted the impact of violence and abuse on RMT members, including citing previous surveys on this subject:
“Outtransportworkerswillnotbesafeunlessmoremeasuresareincludedinthis legislation.Wearealsohearingfromothergroupsofworkers,soweneedto lookholisticallyatthethreatstheyarefacingandhowwecanputthoseprotectionsin placetoensurethatspecificmeasuresareavailabletohelpkeepthemsafe.Thatwould alsobebetterforthepublic.
WeshouldalsolookattheworktheRMThasdone.Ithassurveyeditswomenworkers, and40%oftransportworkerswhoarewomenhavebeensexuallyharassedinthelast year,andthat,too,isontherise.TwothirdsofRMTmembershaveexperiencedabuse, violenceorantisocialbehaviour,but40%havenotreporteditastheyarenotconfident
2 https://railuk.com/btp/tfl-launches-new-campaign-to-tackle-violence-against-staff/ 3 https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60726/documents/6491
thattheywillgettherecoursetheyneed.Thisishavinganimpactontheirhealthand wellbeing.Thelevelofpost-traumaticstressdisorderexperiencedbytransportworkersis doublethatofthegeneralpopulation.Thatiswhytheyarecallingforlegalprotectionfor allpublictransportworkers becauseofthescaleandtheprevalence.Movingforward withthiswillalsodeterperpetratorsandsupportworkers.Itwillimproveactionand responsetimesandthesupportthatisavailable.”
It should be noted that as a probing amendment, Rachael’s amendment was not put to a vote, and instead this presented an opportunity to start the debate with the Government on this issue. RMT has also written to the Home Secretary the Rt Hon Yvette Cooper MP to urge the Government to amend the Crime and Policing Bill to this effect. We will continue to pursue legislative changes as the Bill progresses through the House of Lords and are also seeking further discussions with the Government on this issue.
The activity detailed in this briefing is the start of a campaign for legislative changes, and the Union will keep agitating until these legislative changes are forthcoming.
Industry support for legislation
In the rail sector, there is industry support for additional legal protections for rail workers. Alongside BTP, rail operators and other industry stakeholders, RMT attends the Violence at Work Group. Discussions at this Group have included the need for stronger legal protections, and the BTP, RDG and Network Rail all made representations to the Crime and Policing Bill to this effect.
The BTP’s4 evidence to the Committee called for the creation of a standalone offence of assault of a transport worker, and made an important distinction about the impact of the new protections for retail workers, should the Government not legislate to protect transport workers as well:
“ThisBillseekstointroduceanewspecificoffenceofassaultofretailworker.Itshouldbe notedthatiftheseprovisionsbecomelaw,thiswillcreatesignificantinequalityinthelegal responseonBTPjurisdiction.Atastation,thetwotypesofworkerscouldbeworkingin closeproximitytoeachother,howeverifbothareassaulted,thelawwillofferagreater levelofprotectiontotheretailworkerthantothetransportworker.Thisdisparityis wrong.”
Both the Rail Delivery Group (representing the rail operators) and Network Rail made representations to the Bill Committee5 in support of amendments tabled at Committee stage by Connor Rand MP which sought to extend the provisions relating to retail workers to all ‘public facing workers’. RDG confirmed that it also supports the additional step called for by BTP of creating a standalone offence of assaulting a transport worker.
In addition, a parliamentary petition was set up by MTR director Clare McCane which calls on the Government to review measures to protect railway workers from violent crime following the fatal assault of RMT member Jorge Ortega at Ilford station in December 2024.
4 https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmpublic/CrimePolicing/memo/CPB65.htm
5 https://bills.parliament.uk/publications/60726/documents/6491 and https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm5901/cmpublic/CrimePolicing/memo/CPB117.htm
Activity in Scotland
In Scotland, where this is a devolved matter, the Union has also been undertaking activity in support of legislative change. In Scotland, legislation already exists creating a standalone offence of abusing or assaulting retail workers, and the Union has correspondence from the Scottish Government that this existing legislation would cover certain transport workers, for instance when retailing refreshments or tickets. However, further correspondence has, so far, not established a clear position on exactly which workers would be protected.
As a result of RMT pressure, Transport Scotland has convened a working group with the unions, BTP and ScotRail to look at legal protections for rail workers in Scotland, including a specific session on extending the retail worker protections to rail workers, and the Union will continue to use these Group to make the case for why additional legal protections are needed.
Contacts - Sophie Ward, National Policy Officer - s.ward@rmt.org.uk; Jonathan Havard and Sarah Friday, Health and Safety Officers j.havard@rmt.org.uk and s.friday@rmt.org.uk
