Percepção do processo de adaptação às novas atribuições do cargo de motorista de transporte coletivo urbano do estado do Rio Grande do Sul

Abstract

Urban public transport is a service that is part of the daily routine of the population and during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic, the transport sector did not close its activities. Public transport companies have adapted to economic changes by developing strategies to reduce costs, such as reducing fleets, reducing timetables and reducing the number of drives. These changes provoked an increase in the activities of the driver. Thus, the present study aimed to evaluate the process of adapting to the new assignments of bus drivers, seeking to understand how these factors impact the health and quality of life of workers. This is a qualitative research, in which two urban bus drivers participated. A semi-structured interview script was used to collect reports and information from volunteer drivers, the data were analyzed from the Grounded Theory. As a result of the analysis of the interviews, it was observed that the increase in tasks and the absence of the drivers requires a higher level of attention, making them more worried during the workday. Another identified point is the perception that the performance of the function is not interpreted as a stress factor, however, they feel more affected by feeling incapable of offering quality assistance to the users, generating a feeling of incapacity in the face of the customer service. Thus, it is understood that the overlapping of tasks can increase the pathologies of these workers in the long term. These points demonstrate the importance and the need to provide a quality work environment for bus drivers, since they are a work category that is present in the daily lives of more than half of the population on a daily basis and the health of this worker directly reflects on the delivery of your services.