Transport for London: Crackdown on fare dodgers costs £22m

Transport for London (TfL) spent nearly £22m cracking down on fare dodging across the Tube and bus network over the last year.

The organisation collected £1.3m in penalty charges as a result of the enforcement campaign.

Fare evasion across all of TfL’s services fell slightly from an estimated 3.9% of journeys in 2022/23, to 3.8% in 2023/24, despite total journeys rising by 300 million.

TfL said that the harm caused by fare evaders “is much greater than simply the missed cost of a ticket” in response to a Freedom of Information request on the topic.

The transport body said fare evaders can often be “intimidating or abusive to our colleagues and to our customers”.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, it spent £14.2m on a revenue enforcement team on the Underground.

A further £7.7m was spent enforcing fares on the capital’s buses.

TfL said it did not know how much had been spent on the London Overground, Tram network or on the Elizabeth line because those services are operated by franchisees that outsource their enforcement teams.

In a report last month, TfL commissioner Andy Lord said staff were “launching a new fare evasion poster on the network”.

He added that TfL investigations had identified 414 people who habitually avoided paying for all or part of their journeys last year, adding up to more than £363,000 of avoided fares.

On the Tube network, penalties totalling £638,520 were issued between April 2023 and March 2024, while £707,272 of fines were issued on the bus network.

TfL said it was also aware that £560,944 of penalties had been charged on the Overground and a further £756,534 on the Elizabeth line.

From June 2023 to June 2024, £32,328 of penalties were issued on the Tram network.

The transport authority said its team of revenue inspectors provide a “vital deterrent that influences the rate of fare evasion”.

“Revenue inspectors operate across our network day and night, using new technology and intelligence to identify anyone travelling without a ticket,” said TfL.

“Fare evasion takes away vital revenue from us to reinvest in our transport network to keep London moving.”

TfL now aims to bring the level of fare evasion below 1.5%.

The penalty charge for fare evasion is £100, reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days.

Penalties are issued “where the offender is considered not to have deliberately set out to avoid the fare,” TfL policies state.