TravelSafe give red card to youth misbehaviour

A special football tournament and presentation event was held on Saturday (27 October) as the Travelsafe Partnership (TSP) aimed to put the boot into antisocial behaviour on public transport.

The winners were presented with a trophy on the pitch at half time in the League One fixture between Rochdale AFC and Charlton Athletic at the town’s Crown Oil Arena.

The youngsters, all from the local area, fired their way to victory in a special football tournament organised by the TravelSafe Partnership and involving staff from operator KeolisAmey Metrolink held earlier in the day.

The tournament was organised as part of the TSP’s programme of engagement with the community in order to help tackle and understand the issues and root causes of antisocial behaviour (ASB) on public transport.  The event was organised in partnership with Rochdale AFC, who donated home, away and third strips as well as match tickets for participants.

It followed on from a recent programme of Crucial Crew event appearances by the TSP. Held throughout October, the events saw over 1,800 year six children from Rochdale schools provided with real life scenarios and interactive discussions that enabled them to learn about safety by experiencing risk in a controlled environment.

Chris Thorpe, TfGM’s Head of Control and Operational Support, said: “Our engagement programme is a crucial part of our work as we want to make people aware from a young age of how their behaviour on public transport can impact both themselves and others.

“By providing opportunities like this that are fun and well-received by young people, we can break down any barriers that exist and also show that our officers are people they can turn to for help while out and about on transport networks.

“It is really important that every member of our community feels safe to travel on public transport without feeling intimidated or unduly concerned by the behaviour of others.”

Rochdale AFC Head of Community, Keith Hicks, said: “This was a fantastic initiative that we were proud to be involved in. Tackling the issue around antisocial behaviour on public transport is vital and we were pleased to add our support to this.

“We were delighted to host the tournament and invite participants to the Crown Oil Arena for the match. We hope everyone enjoyed the day, but also took away some very important key messages.”

The TSP uses intelligence and crime and ASB data from contributing operators to help target patrols in the necessary areas at key times.

As well as undertaking dedicated and intelligence-led operations, the TSP will continue its programme of engagement with the community to tackle and understand the issues and root causes of ASB. 

Incidents of crime and ASB continue to be rare on the region’s buses and trams, when you consider approximately 250 million journeys are made on the bus and tram networks across the city region each year.

The TSP operates an extensive youth education programme, which includes visits to school and youth groups and other outreach activities. The scheme is led by Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Greater Manchester Police (GMP) with support from contributing operators KeolisAmey Metrolink, Stagecoach and First Manchester.