One trespasser can delay 50,000 people. Can retrofitting stations fix the problem?
By Alex Crowe
Pet owners walking dogs on railway lines, copper thieves and people spray-painting trains have all contributed to Melbourne’s train network recording close to 2600 trespassing incidents in the past 12 months, causing major delays for commuters.
Transport groups have called for the installation of perspex doors on station platforms to keep people off tracks, and change to a protocol that has shut down the Metro Trains network twice in recent weeks.
Currently, train drivers are instructed to stop when someone is seen on the tracks, and often cannot resume until police give the OK.
The Victorian Department of Transport and Planning said one Melbourne trespasser can hold up thousands of passengers while operators check the line to ensure it is safe to resume services – and a trespasser on the City Loop can delay up to 50,000 people.
Commuters faced peak-hour delays this week when trespassers were reported on tracks at four separate locations on Tuesday afternoon.
And on July 28, Collingwood and Carlton supporters en route to the MCG left a train that had been stalled for an hour near Clifton Hill station, walking down a steep embankment to get off the tracks.
Thousands of commuters were delayed earlier in August when train service in the CBD was halted due to trespassers.Credit: Nine News
Public Transport Users Association spokesperson Daniel Bowen said isolating part of the network when a trespasser is spotted would be far less disruptive than a complete shutdown.
He also said perspex doors on platforms, which will be installed along the new Metro Tunnel, should be considered for other Melbourne stations. Sydney Metro has platform doors installed across eight new city stations.
“They do need to look at whether the infrastructure is up to scratch,” Bowen told ABC radio on Thursday. “In some of the suburban areas, there is no fencing around rail lines. There are long gaps where people can get onto the tracks.”
On average, there are more than seven instances of trespassing on Melbourne train tracks each day, Metro reports, and 2591 people trespassed on the city’s network in the 12 months to July.
There are about 9250 CCTV cameras across the network, plus anti-trespass ground panels (a spiky ground surface covering designed to make it difficult for pedestrians to access rail corridors), and thermal imaging cameras to monitor and prevent illegal activity.
Metro Trains safety manager Adrian Rowland said only 25 per cent of the Melbourne network is adequately fenced, which does little to deter committed trespassers, including graffiti artists and copper thieves.
Rowland said retrofitting stations with doors is not as straightforward as installing more fencing, since the train doors of various carriage models stop at different positions. He said Metro was currently speaking to international manufacturers about a solution.
“We don’t want something that people can just hop over,” Rowland told the ABC. “We know we have nuisance trespasses; we have people who are deliberately going to try and get there to commit crime.”
Anti-trespass panels have been installed at some Melbourne train stations.
Rowland said 46 people are struck by trains in Melbourne each year on average and there are another 450 near-misses where drivers are forced to apply the emergency brakes to avoid hitting someone.
“People who have been inconvenienced recently would have experienced what happens when it gets really complex, and we can’t react as quickly as we would like,” Rowland said.
“What we need to do is more on the prevention side to actually reduce the number of trespassers.
“We think level crossings, where they’ve been removed, have actually reduced activity in that area. But if you look at the overall figures, it probably means that the problem has gone somewhere else.”
An average of 84 people die on rail networks nationwide each year, according to a Victorian Department of Transport report.
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