A 19-year-old woman who says she was assaulted on a Winnipeg Transit bus wants to know why nobody stepped up to help her.

The woman is now afraid to take the bus after the incident last month, which involved three men.

"I stood up and the bus driver stopped the bus and just opened the door for me to get off without saying anything," said the woman, whose identity is being protected because no arrests have been made.

She was sitting in a seat near the front of the bus on her way to work at around 10 a.m. A few minutes into the ride a man approached her, she said.

"He started telling me how beautiful I was, how beautiful my eyes were and asking to see my ears," she said, adding that he was leaning in and trying to touch her face and ears.

The first man returned to his seat at the back of the bus, but soon after the woman said she was approached by a second man claiming to be the first man's father. The man said his son was interested in dating her.

When the second man reached out to touch her hair, the woman said an off-duty bus driver who was also on board told the man to sit down. Unfortunately the woman said the off-duty driver left the bus soon after, although he told the bus driver to keep an eye on the situation.

Moments later a third man approached her, the woman said.

"That's when I started getting really uncomfortable," she said. "He was putting his hand on my leg and caressing my hair."

The woman asked the man to stop touching her but she says things continued to escalate.

"I had three men surrounding me. I couldn't exactly pull out my phone and call 911 without them seeing," she said, adding she was afraid it would escalate the situation.

The third man then said his girlfriend was at the back of the bus, the woman said.

"That's when all of the girls [at the back of the bus] started getting riled up, saying stop talking to our boyfriends. So that's when I started getting scared," she said.

The woman was afraid at first to get off the bus because she might be followed by the group, but after one of the men tried to lie on her shoulder, she said she had to get away.

The woman reported the incident to police.

Drivers receive assault prevention training

Two days after the terrifying encounter, the woman said she called Winnipeg Transit to find out why the driver failed to provide help.

She said she was told that the transit company only found out about the incident when they were questioned by police.

The city would not comment on the specific incident.

"Winnipeg Transit continues to work collaboratively with the Winnipeg Police Service in providing a safe and secure transit system" a City of Winnipeg spokesperson said in an email.

Winnipeg Transit drivers participate in assault prevention training, according to the spokesperson, but a CBC request for more information on that training was denied.

In the meantime, the woman said she want to know why nothing was done by the driver or fellow passengers.

"It's not like they were getting physical or anything," she said. "I don't think it was a matter of safety for anyone else on the bus. It would have been ... easy enough for someone to dial 9-1-1 and say 'there's a problem on this bus'."