Brisbane buses will soon be twice as likely to be tailed by a security car as Brisbane City Council boosts its investment in bus driver safety.
The safety of the city's bus drivers has been topical following the death of council bus driver Manmeet Sharma in October 2016.
The council conducted a $100,000 independent review into Mr Sharma's death, which prompted a safety overhaul across the fleet.
Since that report, released in April, council buses had undergone changes including increased signage about CCTV and emergency exits and the installation of additional emergency exits at the rear of some buses.
Public transport chairman Adrian Schrinner said the council would take further action to improve the safety of bus drivers and passengers.
The council committed an extra $363,000 this year for rapid response vehicles, of which council had a minimum of three in operation at any time.
The extra funding would boost the capability to a minimum of six on the road.
Security workers travel in these vehicles and drive behind buses on routes that have attracted concern from both bus drivers and passengers.
The cars were used, as opposed to an officer travelling on the bus, so they could divert to any urgent jobs if necessary.
The extra security cars would be rolled out by early September.
Cr Schrinner said an extra $137,000 had also been allocated to deal with issues as they arose.
"That will be targeted security guards out there on the network in areas where we get feedback that there are problems, or could be problems," Cr Schrinner said on Tuesday.
Starting August 28, all Brisbane bus drivers would be given the chance to have their say on the installation of protective barriers on buses.
Cr Schrinner said bus drivers would be shown a bus equipped with a partial barrier and a bus with a full barrier to help them make their decision.
"Drivers can see what they look like, they can sit in the chair and experience what it would be like in the driver seat of a bus with these barriers in place," he said.
"So we will be supporting that opportunity for bus drivers to have their say on this important issue."
Council opposition transport spokesman Jared Cassidy said the opposition asked for the safety improvements six months ago.
"It's something that we've been calling for for months now, both in council publicly and in committee meetings," Cr Cassidy said.
"What he [Cr Schrinner] said today is he's going to go out to depots to talk to drivers, we asked them to do that over six months ago and he didn't think it was warranted at the time."
Cr Cassidy said the extra security was needed, and agreed bus drivers should have their say about protective barriers.
Cr Schrinner said the council was stepping up to deliver safety improvements for bus drivers and passengers as the state government's bus safety review had not yet been released.
"The state government review was meant to be a six-month review, announced in September last year, due to be finished by the end of March," he said.
"It's now 11 months on and there is still no sign of that review. So council has bitten the bullet here and decided to take further action over and above the recommendations of our own review to improve safety and security for bus drivers and passengers."
