Last weekend, a serious incident of aggression occurred against a ticket inspector working for the Flemish public transportation company De Lijn at Antwerp-Berchem station. Unfortunately, this is not an isolated incident, as figures from the newspaper Het Laatste Nieuws show that De Lijn recorded 226 violent incidents against tickets inspectors last year. That is a striking increase from the 186 incidents a year earlier and the 166 cases in 2023.
An additional consequence is that De Lijn ticket inspectors were collectively absent for a record total of 1,750 days last year due to incidents of aggression. De Lijn’s management has since formulated several proposals to address safety concerns.
1,750 days of absence
Last year, De Lijn’s 239 inspectors were confronted with 226 violent incidents. These included 128 cases of physical aggression and 98 of verbal aggression.
Due to this sharp increase in aggression-related workplace incidents, inspectors are also missing work more frequently: 1,750 days in 2025, the highest number since records began being tracked centrally in 2019 – in 2024, for example, there were 494 days of work absences.
High financial targets
Since the incident that occurred during a ticket inspection at the Antwerp-Berchem station, De Lijn has formulated a number of proposals to address safety concerns.
For example, the company plans to expand the late-shift team from 2 to 3 inspectors, and additional self-dense training is being considered. All buses will be equipped with video surveillance anyway – as of June of this year, 91% of the vehicles were equipped with cameras. Body cameras are also being introduced as an additional safety measure. The plan is to begin using them in early 2027, once federal regulations are in place.
In addition to the shortage of staff for ticket inspections, the unions are also criticizing the high financial targets. According to them, the Flemish Government expects De Lijn to collect 30 million euros through ticket inspections. Between January and November 2025, De Lijn inspected 2,65 million passengers, an 18% increase compared to the same period the previous year. This resulted in nearly 93,500 citations (+20%), with a total amount of fines imposed amounting to 15,2 million euros.
Since 2023, De Lijn has been implementing a 10-point plan that includes: enclosed driver’s cabs in all buses, the hiring of additional fare inspectors, extra training, body cameras, video surveillance, and cooperation with the police to ensure faster prosecution of offenders. Nevertheless, the numbers continue to rise, which led NMBS/SNCB, De Lijn, MIVB/STIB; and LETEC to jointly launch another “respect” campaign last year.
