Violence on railways in Sussex is soaring.

Passengers groups are demanding tougher safeguards to make travellers feel safer after official figures revealed a 53 per cent rise in violence over five years.

The figures, released in response to a parliamentary question, reveal the number of violent incidents recorded by police on the Sussex network. A spokeswoman from Passenger Focus, a rail users group, said: "We want more staff presence so passengers can feel safe.

"They tell us over and over what they want to see is staff presence on the trains and at stations, not necessarily a policeman, but just someone there to feel safe."

British Transport Police figures from April 1, 2004, to March 31, 2005, show 204 violent incidents occurred on the county railway, compared to 133 in 1999/00.

Nationally, the force recorded a 43 per cent rise in violent incidents.

A spokesman for British Transport Police said: "Most of these are common assaults. There isn't a violence problem on the trains in Sussex.

"If you look at violent crime across the country in general it's gone up 96 per cent since 1998. You get some violence among football fans and a lot of incidents are alcohol related."

Darren Barker, of Cootes Avenue, Horsham, works in the emergency services and has attended a number of violent incidents.

He said: "I have been to incidents where people have been attacked and beaten up. Often it happens on the train but they will travel quite a while before they report it at a station."

Ruth Addicott, of Holland Road, Hove, was on a Brighton train two years ago when she witnessed "steaming", the term for a group of people storming through train carriages, abusing passengers and beating them up. The experience left her frightened of train travel.

She said: "They put their hoods up, they were charging through, smoking marijuana and started attacking this bloke. They were really laying into him and I was really really scared so I moved to the next carriage."

Geraldine Hall, of Westfield Avenue, Saltdean, said: "I know somebody recently, who was jumped when they got off the train late at night by half a dozen youths. He was quite badly beaten up."

In Autumn 2005 on Southern trains, 55 per cent of passengers said they felt their personal security at stations was satisfactory or good, with 10 per cent dissatisfied, a three per cent improvement from 2004.

Train operators are beginning to introduce a greater presence on trains. Southern trains have introduced a crime and disorder task force which can be deployed along train routes.

South Eastern trains, who operate in Hastings have accredited rail enforcement officers who travel as a high-visibility reassuring presence. South West trains have a similar scheme.

Southern has spent £900 million on trains with CCTV and some of their stations have live CCTV links to a control centre in Brighton.