Reports reveal 52 assaults/threats at Elgin Bus Station since 2022, a sharp rise from pre-pandemic levels.
Police Scotland shared data after a request. The data showed many incidents happened. Fifty-two assaults and threats occurred from 2022 through 2024. Before the pandemic, things were different; only thirty incidents occurred from 2014 to 2019. That is a much longer time.
The data showed big jumps, especially in 2022. Seventeen incidents happened in that one year. Free bus travel started in Scotland that January, allowing people aged five to twenty-one to ride free. We do not know the age of the people causing trouble.
Some think the free travel caused the problem. The station felt unsafe soon after it started. The problem continued in later years. Fifteen incidents occurred in 2023, and twenty incidents occurred in 2024.
Unite the union wanted changes to the free travel program after a bus driver, Keith Rollinson, died in February 2023. Mr. Rollinson was an Elgin bus driver, aged fifty-eight. A fifteen-year-old attacked him at the station.
The union made a safety plan; this “bus safety road map” had fifteen ideas. They wanted the government and bus companies to work together for better safety at bus stations. A Unite person stated they wanted immediate safety measures to fully protect bus workers.
The union told The Northern Scot their view remains the same. Keith Rollinson died after the assault at the bus station, a sad event that happened in February 2023.