Melbourne bus shelters become vandals' top target as reports jump 50pc

Snap Send Solve recorded more than 5,700 reports of vandalism and graffiti on Victorian public transport between October 2025 and last month, up from 3,760 the year before — a 50 per cent jump. Bus shelters were the number one target, drawing nearly 3,700 reports, twice as many as the previous 12 months. Graffiti and broken glass topped the list of complaints.

The app's chief executive, Danny Gorog, ruled out a simple explanation. Snap Send Solve launched in 2013 and now fields about two million reports a year from roughly 1.25 million registered users across Australia and New Zealand, spanning everything from potholes to graffiti. According to Gorog, this is not app growth or a broad vandalism wave — vandals are hitting shelters specifically.

Bus shelter vandalism made up fewer than half of all public transport vandalism reports on the app in 2024-25. In 2025-26 it was nearly two-thirds. Gorog floated a repair-lag theory: graffiti left sitting can invite more of it. Public Transport Users Association spokesperson Daniel Bowen called the damage a particular nuisance, especially in hot and wet weather extremes, and said anecdotally there are too many cases.

Fixing shelters is a patchwork job. Shelters carrying electronic billboards usually fall to the advertising company leasing them, and several local governments contacted by the ABC declined to comment, deferring to the Department of Transport and Planning or oOh!media, which leases shelters for advertising.

In Melbourne's north-east, the Shire of Nillumbik — home to Eltham and Diamond Creek — has taken 130 vandalism reports since January, about one every two days, and says shelters are inspected and cleaned twice a week. Frankston City in the south-east removed more than 37,000 square metres of graffiti across all property types last financial year and runs a trial paying locals $500 when their graffiti report leads to a guilty finding in court.

The Victorian government confirmed shelters are the most common vandalism spot on the network but did not put a repair figure on it. It says about $10 million a year goes to removing and repairing graffiti on the train network, and the Department of Transport and Planning says it runs more than 14,000 CCTV cameras plus drones and new tracking technology along train routes. Its advice to anyone spotting damaged property: report it to Victoria Police.