Tram driver Vratislav Feigel has had his finger dislocated by an unruly passenger, but the only time he truly feared for his life was when a homeless man pulled a knife on him.

"I didn't really know what to do. There was no one else around," he recalls.

For 10 years, Feigel drove the city's night routes, and eventually stopped counting the times he was threatened with violence.

"Night trams can be dangerous places, and it's getting worse," says Feigel, who now chairs the Union of Public Transportation Workers (OSPEA). "As a night-tram driver, you often have to leave your cabin and go among the passengers. And people are becoming so aggressive these days."

Prague's night trams have developed a nasty reputation in recent years as overcrowded places teeming with rowdy drunks, pickpockets and sleeping homeless people. But this could soon change. City Hall is weighing a plan to place watchmen on all night trams as part of a new effort to clean them up.

City officials say the plan could go into effect this winter. But they are not outlining key details, like where they plan to get the extra manpower. Moreover, the security measure is expected to cost as much as 74.3 million Kč ($3.4 million) — an amount Prague Mayor Pavel Bém calls a worthwhile investment — but no one is saying where they'll find that money.

Prague's Transport Company (DP) Director Tomáš Jílek says the move would be a step in the right direction, but is too costly and he calls City Hall's proposal premature.

"Sure, watchmen would help," he says. "But where am I going to get the money?"

One option City Hall is considering is raising the ticket price on Prague's nine night routes (which run from midnight to 6 a.m.) — from 20 to 40 Kč — in an effort to pay for beefed-up security. That won't be enough, says Jílek.

A Catch-22

Onboard security could come from the ranks of Prague police, existing ticket inspectors or a private agency, and the distinction among these three matters.

There are two major problems plaguing Prague's night trams and costing millions: vandalism and nonpaying passengers. But dealing with one presents a challenge to addressing the other.

Vandalism alone costs the DP an estimated 20 million Kč each year. If watchmen came from the ranks of Prague police, they would have the authority to arrest vandals and fine rowdy passengers — but they could do little in terms of ticket inspection. If watchmen were regular ticket inspectors, they could improve collection rates on night trams — but they would not have the authority to crack down on vandals and hooligans.

A private security agency might lack authority in both realms.

"Ticket inspectors don't really have any authority over the passengers," says Jílek. "They can't even make them leave the tram."

The ideal solution, Jílek says, would be to create a special force of police officers with the authority to inspect tickets.

But would Prague police have enough resources?

Police officials weren't able to say. "It's all up to City Hall," said police spokeswoman Radka Dajtová.

City Hall would not answer repeated requests for comment from The Prague Post.

Jiří Prokel, director of the Regional Organizer of Prague Integrated Transport (ROPID), a specialized organization that works with the DP to run Prague's transportation system, doesn't see the need for specialized watchmen on each night tram. Ideally, ticket inspectors and police officers would work together in pairs, patrolling the busiest, most problematic routes, the ones that run through the city center.

These include: Tram 51, which runs from Divoká Šárka to Nádraží Strašnice; the 57, which goes from Bílá Hora to Nádraží Hostivař; and the 58, which runs from Spojovací to Sídliště Řepy.

But in order for this scheme to work, Prokel says, the watchmen would also need to patrol city buses that run at night. Altogether, City Hall's tram plan would call for at least additional 100 people to monitor the city's transport system.

The homeless problem

Despite the disagreement about how to incorporate watchmen into Prague's nighttime transportation, everyone seems to agree that something needs to be done.

According to Feigel, the tram driver, by far the biggest problem on night routes is the growing number of homeless people who use trams as a place to sleep during the winter months. Given Prague's lack of homeless shelters — short, according to some estimates, some 1,500 beds — the problem is bound to grow worse.

Feigel doesn't think putting police officers on trams is a good idea.