Sixty years ago, the first women drivers of public buses and trolleybuses were trained in Brno. They thus joined female colleagues who had been driving trams for the Brno Transport Company (DPMB) since 1949. Credit: DPMB via Facebook.
Brno, Nov 15 (BD) -Women make up 414 of the 2,600 employees of DPMB. Among the 1,400 drivers, 15% are women. According to DPMB, the number of women driving Brno buses, trolleybuses and trams has doubled in the last ten years, to 188.
“We certainly welcome women, they are clearly just as good drivers as men. I would even say that in relation to passengers, their natural ability to empathize and communicate is an advantage,” said the DPMB CEO Miloš Havránek.
According to trolleybus driver Lucie Pospíšilová, respect and a responsible approach to work are essential, but she considers any worries unnecessary. “The worries of women about the driving profession are certainly unnecessary, it has long finished being exclusive to men.”
Passengers usually do not even notice whether the car is driven by a man or a woman. Gender also doesn’t play any role in setting the shifts. There is a predominance of men on night buses, where there is a higher risk of unruly passenger behavior, “but currently four brave women also drive on these lines,” said Hana Tomaštíková, a spokeswoman for DPMB. “We do not see any differences in terms of the number of accidents either. DPMB statistics show that men and women in the company report the same number of accidents,” she added.
