Graffiti artists, selfie takers targeted by Australian state's transport chiefs

Selfie-taking "idiots" and graffiti artists who trespass onto an Australian city's transport loop will no longer shut down the entire underground network, after the state government pledged 100 million U.S. dollars to fix the growing issue.

On Monday, the Victorian government announced its plan to upgrade Melbourne City Loop's detection systems in response to the rising number of trespassers running loose on the tracks and bringing the inner-city train loop to a halt.

The new detection scheme will allow the Loop's safety monitors to isolate which of Melbourne's four tunnels the intruder is located within, shutting down that section of rail, instead than the whole city loop.

"It allows us to know if anybody goes off a platform and into a tunnel, which currently we don't know," Melbourne Metro Trains chief executive Andrew Lezala told reporters on Monday.

"If an intruder goes into a tunnel, we stop the railway. Now we'll be able to stop just one little bit of the railway."

Between 40 to 50 intruders have ventured into the tunnels annually in the past two years, a four-fold increase on 2013 levels.

"That's just stupid, reckless behavior," Victoria's Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan told reporters on Monday.

Lezala said the bulk of the people walking around the pitch-black network were putting their lives in danger for stupid, vain reasons.

"These idiots just want to take selfies in the tunnel," he said.

The 100-million-U.S.-dollar project, to be outlined further in next month's state budget, will upgrade the tunnel's alarms, security cameras, platform barriers and fire system.

Work will begin on the updates in July and take three years to complete, Allan said. Endit