A quick one – there’s a media story (web paywall, but you can read the text here) getting attention today about crime on public transport hitting a ten year high in 2025. The focus is on assaults and other offences related to personal safety.
ABC Radio asked me to comment, so I had a quick look at the source data, because anecdotally, while there are incidents, the system hasn’t seemed markedly less safe recently.
| PT: Offence division | 2024 | 2025 | Increase | % of total 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crimes against the person | 2874 | 2935 | 2.1% | 17.5% |
| Property and deception | 7531 | 9260 | 23.0% | 55.2% |
| Drugs | 1449 | 1891 | 30.5% | 11.3% |
| Public order and security | 1398 | 1631 | 16.7% | 9.7% |
| Justice procedures | 746 | 810 | 8.6% | 4.8% |
| Other | 205 | 249 | 21.5% | 1.5% |
| Total | 14203 | 16776 | 18.1% |
Authorities should absolutely do more on personal safety, because everyone needs to feel safe and be safe on public transport. But the big rises are in property crime and drugs offences.
If you dig into the big Property Crime category further, some 40% of offences relate to theft of or from motor vehicles, presumably occurring within public transport car parks.
It would be interesting to know if the big rises are due to increased reporting and detection.
In any case, there is more that can be done. Better CCTV, ensuring quick responses to alarms, and upgrading the STOPIT text line (or a similar service) to provide real-time responses would all help improve safety.
The changes to deployment of PSOs will probably also help in time, rather than tying up lots of officers on quiet stations in the evening where nothing happens. (Older data showed 48% of assaults occur before 6pm, and 45% were at just ten hotspot stations.)
There’s more to be done, but let’s not panic, or assume the network is inherently unsafe. Public transport did not become dramatically less safe in 2025 than it was in 2024.
ABC segment here (starts at approx 1h:45m)
13 replies on “Crime on PT”
Herald Sun, official media for the Victorian Liberal Party.
Say no more.
What a surprise. The piece is from a Murdoch rag. The proximity to a state election is no surprise either. Straight from a decades old play book.
Have the number of passengers stayed the same from 2024 to 2025? Raw numbers of offences are great, providing all the other variables are constant
Mainstream media, sadly including the ABC.
Will do everything to shame/reduce/eliminate anything that doesn’t involve driving a motor car.
Media gets over $800 million annually in car advertising, this at a time when revenue has been rapidly declining due to internet tech companies.
Remember motorists currently kill 3 people daily Australia.
Yet when was the last time someone was killed on Public Transport? Yep it doesn’t happen.
Bruce
As you say, people need to “feel safe”. An issue in this regard is “anti-social behaviour”. It’s not illegal (so far as I know) for a disturbed person to wander around the carriage muttering to themselves (etc), and adult males may not be too concerned about it, but others may not be as relaxed and hence may prefer the perceived security of their own cars.
True, not a new issue and no easy answers, although perhaps PSOs being visible in the right places offer some reassurance.
Would be interesting to see at which locations the crimes have occurred/increased. There are many locations around the network where nothing ever happens. There are some high profile locations where you anticipate crime. Unless you had reason to hop on/off at those locations you’d probably never experience the crimes. You’d hope authorities know the difference between locations and put relevant resources into the likely hotspots
Crime has increased . I see more people riding PTV and keep shouting profanity and racist comments. Once more than half the people exited the bus and waited to catch the next one
I often take what the Herald Sun says with a grain of salt as it is one of the least trusted media outlets in the country (along with the rest of the Murdoch Empire, including Sky “News”, soon to be “News” 24). And yes, there is also an election (and the policies of the Liberal Party are very thin) coming up and everyone knows the Herald Sun (and the Murdoch Empire) is in the pockets of the Liberal Party, especially the Sky After Dark programs which is heavily bias towards the Liberal Party (I read somewhere that Paul Murray openly admitted that Sky After Dark is a Liberal Party echo chamber).
So, in summary, take the Herald Sun with a grain of salt as most of the time, it is probably not true.
Is Drugs people shooting up or sniffing glue, or does it include smoking legal cigs and drinking legal booze where it’s not allowed?
If you improved the feeder bus services then the need for parking at the station would diminish somewhat. So no need to put CCTV, fences around the station car park, eliminate it the crime problem by removing the cars.
Mind you watch for bait and switch that happened with feeder buses in Japan. Originally railway and bus were same entity, single fare covers both feeder bus and rail fare. Railway companies spun off the bus part to a separate company and made it a separate fare. Then everyone starts cycling to the station to save on the bus fare and leaves bicycles everywhere in their thousands at the local station, big problem, eventually have to build massive (paid) bicycle parking lots to contain all the bicycles. If you thought parking inspectors have a low standing the community, the bicycle parking inspectors have an even lower standing as there is basically no free bicycle parking anymore in suburban stations.
Comments admonishing the Herald Sun simply because it leans more right actually neglects to recognise that crime is actually up on PT. Be it better reporting or otherwise, the fact remains crime overall is up in Victoria due to the current Labor inaction on law and order. People feel less safe because their experience makes them feel that way.
I would suggest a change in government at November is the best way to turn these numbers around.
I think the increased crime stats come from having more AOs and PSOs over the past two months, the former finally having other things to do besides checking tickets and the latter no longer being confined to train stations. Of course sensationalist “news” media such as the Herald Sun will always take it up to 11 for the clicks, especially when their sworn enemy is in government (expect News Corp to be flooding their papers with Pauline this, that and the other now that their Liberals are toast).
The biggest annoyance I get lately are people vaping absolutely everywhere, on trains, trams, buses, platforms, in restaurants, shopping centres, even the middle of Crown Casino despite the latter being guarded like Fort Knox.
You can’t move in Melbourne without someone blowing a chemical cloud; at least with traditional smokers they used to go between the carriages (Comeng/X’Trapolis) or to the empty end of the station/tram stop etc. if they absolutely couldn’t go ten minutes without lighting up. Vapers will just puff anywhere they want, they’re not even discreet about it anymore, adult dummy up to mouth and gone in two seconds and then you cop the berry-flavoured bin juice stench lingering around, rinse and repeat every few minutes until they finally get off or go away. Unlike cigarettes with the telltale lighter sound (or match) and taking forever to finish unless you’re butting it out or throwing away $2+ after a single drag (I don’t smoke anything BTW). I rate vapes even more annoying than phone drones in crowded areas who are plodding along at 1 km/h not looking where they’re walking, or the person talking endlessly on loudspeaker who doesn’t shut up for the entire 56-minute train trip FaceTiming with 20 people in a row on the other side of the planet).
@Matt, drugs offences include drug dealing, use, possession.
I suspect smoking where you’re not meant to is not counted in these stats, along with most fare evasion offences (only 39 are recorded in this data for 2025), as they are presumably not criminal offences. (I am not a lawyer!!)
@Heihachi_73, remember, this data is for calendar year 2025 vs 2024.