Many people lived in one half of the city and had family, friends, and jobs in the other. However, the East continuously reduced the means of public transport between East and West, with private cars being a very rare privilege in the East and still a luxury in the West. Starting on 15 January 1953 the tram network was interrupted. East Berlin's public transport operator Berliner Verkehrsbetriebe (BVG-East, BVB as of 1 January 1969) staffed all trams, whose lines crossed the sectorial border, with women drivers, who were not permitted as drivers by the BVG (West), West Berlin's public transport operator. Instead of changing the Western rules, so that the Easterly intended interruption of the cross-border tram traffic would not happen, the BVG (West) insisted on male drivers. Cross-border tram traffic ended on 16 January. In East German propaganda this was a point for the East, arguing that the West did not allow drivers coming with their trams from the East to continue along their line into the West, but remaining silent on the fact that the end of cross-border tram traffic was most welcome to the East. The underground and the S-Bahn networks, except the above-mentioned traverse S-Bahn trains, continued to provide services between East and West Berlin. However, occasionally the East Berlin police – in the streets and on cross-border trains in East Berlin – identified suspicious behaviour (such as carrying heavy loads westwards) and watched out for unwelcome Westerners. Occasionally, West Germans were banned from entering East Berlin. This was the case between 29 August and 1 September 1960, when ex-prisoners of war and deportees, homecomers (), from all around West Germany and West Berlin met for a convention in that city. The homecomers released mostly from a long detention in the Soviet Union were unwelcome in East Berlin. As they could not be recognised through their identification papers, all West Germans were banned from East Berlin during those days. West Berliners were allowed, since the quadripartite Allied status quo provided for their free movement around all four sectors. From 8 September 1960 on, the East subjected all West Germans to apply for a permit before entering East Berlin. As the communist government in the East gained tighter control, and the economic recovery in the West significantly outperformed the East, more than a hundred thousand East Germans and East Berliners left East Germany and East Berlin for