Metro customers must continue to wear face coverings when travelling on the system, unless they are exempt.
Wearing a face covering throughout your journey, on stations and trains, is a Condition of Carriage when using Metro unless exempt and customers may be refused travel if they do not. You should also wear face coverings when inside bus stations and interchanges or travelling on the Shields Ferry.
This is a simple step that everyone can take to protect you and your family’s health and that of other people in the community. Our frontline teams will continue to remind and encourage customers to wear face coverings when using public transport, and to explain the benefits of doing so.
Huw Lewis, Customer Services Director at Nexus, said: “We are all expected and recommended to keep wearing face coverings in busy indoor settings, including shops and on public transport.
“We will be encouraging customers to follow this advice when making journeys and we will have extra teams out on Monday to talk with customers about why that’s the right thing to do for everyone.
“We have made wearing face coverings part of Metro’s Conditions of Carriage, unless you are exempt, and we will use that as a base to encourage people to do so in busy spaces. It has never been a legal requirement to wash hands regularly, but we’ve all been doing that and we should take the same approach to face coverings.
“Encouraging people to do the right thing is as important as enforcement powers in keeping everyone safe, and we are joining the much larger North East England campaign with health chiefs, local councils and businesses to promote positive behaviour.
“We want there to be a single clear message about what customers should do on public transport, whether it be Metro or bus or Ferry in North East England. Local authority leaders have contacted the Government to ask for clear and consistent powers across the industry which we will support if they are brought in.”