There have been 29,000 fines issued since February 2012, when PSOs first began patrolling train stations, according to crime data released by the Victorian government on Thursday.

Around 75 per cent of those fines were for minor transport offences, such as smoking, spitting, littering and vandalism.

Thousands of passengers were also fined for offensive behaviour, like swearing, while 1454 people were caught crossing the tracks while the boom gates were down.

Another 1700 fines have been written-up for drunk and disorderly behaviour in the past two years.

The Coalition pledged during its successful 2010 state election campaign to have 940 PSOs at every metropolitan train station and major regional station from 6pm until the final train by November this year.

As of last month, there were 761 PSOs deployed and another 140 in training, according to police statistics.

Police Chief Ken Lay has since distanced himself from the government’s election promise, saying there won’t be guards at every station.

‘‘We’ll look at where they need to be and that’s where we’ll put them,’’ he said earlier this month.

But his remarks were immediately rebuked by the government, which will fund another 96 armed guards.

Police Minister Kim Wells announced the additional PSO numbers on Thursday, taking the total number of officers on the network above 1000. The new PSOs will be rolled out by June 2016.

The move comes after Victoria Police released a controversial blue paper that called for cuts to frontline officers.

Mr Lay had said his plans would make the government ‘‘uncomfortable’’.