Bus and rail workers will carry out daily reviews of anti-social behavior from today to decide if services will continue in so-called 'black spots' in the weeks leading up to Halloween.
A motion was passed by members of the National Bus and Rail Union in August to withdraw services from certain areas if there were attacks on staff.
A senior representative of the NBRU has said that this is part of a wider campaign to try and get a dedicated garda Public Transport Unit.
Speaking on RTÉ's Drivetime, Thomas O'Connor said representatives around the country are logging any occurrence of anti-social behaviour on a daily basis.
He said that if they deem an incident to be serious enough, then services in that area will be withdrawn.
He said there is a "huge range" of incidents that can occur, including an incident in Cork where a bus driver was allegedly shot with a pellet gun.
"We've had a number of robberies, verbal abuse, drug taking and spitting," Mr O'Connor said.
Mr O'Connor said some routes are worse than others. He cited the northside of Dublin's DART line, Dublin Bus routes 13, 27 and 40, a number of routes in Limerick and Cork, and one route in Waterford, as ones that have experienced an increase in anti-social behaviour.
He said the potential withdrawal of services was not an industrial relations matter and was being done on health and safety grounds.
Mr O'Connor said: "The companies have a statutory obligation to provide a safe working environment for both staff and customers.
"Nobody wants to be withdrawing services on a whim, but we need to protect our members and we need to protect the general public."
Mr O'Connor added that there are already curtailments in place in some parts of Dublin, Limerick and Cork, and that buses and trains will pull out of those areas if anti-social behaviour occurs.
