A Coast Mountain bus driver was struck repeatedly by a passenger in Burnaby on Friday. (CBC)

People who attack Lower Mainland bus drivers should face tougher penalties, the head of the union representing the drivers said Saturday.

Don MacLeod, president of Canadian Auto Workers Local 111, which represents 3,200 bus drivers in Metro Vancouver, said Saturday that attacks on transit drivers such as the one that occurred in Burnaby on Friday night should draw the same penalty as an assault on a police officer.

In that attack, a passenger aboard a Coast Mountain bus, who one witness said was drunk and yelling at other passengers, began urinating in the back of the vehicle. When the driver was alerted and approached the man, asking him to stop, he was hit several times in the head.

The suspect smashed several bus windows and damaged a door before running off. Burnaby RCMP and a Vancouver dog squad were unable to track down the attacker.

A spokesman for Coast Mountain said that up to Sept. 10, there had been 113 assaults on bus drivers in the Lower Mainland, compared with 99 at this time last year. Of the 113 assaults, 55 involved spitting on drivers.

The driver in Friday's incident, a 10-year veteran with the company, is recovering at home, the spokesman said.

With files from The Canadian Press