Stop it in its tracks

ONE tradition that is maintained on the V/Line system but has been jettisoned on Melbourne metropolitan trains is that of the humble ticket checker.

Perhaps it is a necessity of the job but these men and women are almost unfailingly polite, easygoing and with a great common touch.

Their job straddles that divide between ticket checker and general authority figure ensuring good behaviour on board.

When Melbourne’s trams lost their conductors (or “connies”) — who would walk up and down and check and sell tickets from their bookie-style bags — it lost something special.

The connies were replaced, ultimately, by faceless, humanity-free automation.

We beep on, we beep off and no other human is involved in the transaction. We beep on and off the V/Line, too — but in between, on the carriage, there is a friendly ticket checker who can listen to your story about the broken ticket machine and weigh up whether it has any merit and exercise a discretion.

On the metropolitan lines the inhuman automation system — which risks being sidestepped by fare evaders — is buttressed by the burly enforcement arm: ticket inspectors.

The ticket inspector is to the ticket checker what the rottweiler is to the poodle.

Given all this, it is very saddening that assaults against V/Line staff, certain to include some friendly ticket checkers, are on the rise.

Some jobs come with an assumption of risk — police officers, emergency services workers.

But too often today, those whose jobs should never encounter violence — paramedics, for instance, and rail staff — are being used as punching bags by anti-social members of the public.

The answers to this scourge are not clear. It would be a shame to have to keep adding to the numbers of security professionals walking the streets and riding the rails.

But we must find the solution and stop this ugly trend in its tracks.