Is there a more infuriating sight in London today than TfL staff ignoring blatant fare dodging, as pushy thugs barge through the barriers right under their heavily unionised noses? Fare evaders bashing through the Tube gates is now a common sight — or indeed a common sound, since the machines go berserk as they ram through them. I can’t be the only traveller who feels like I witness this on nearly every journey.
It used to be the case that subtle tailgaters would linger a little too close for comfort and leap through the barriers just as you tapped your payment card — ah, that classic, sneaky tactic that defined the fare evaders of yore. Such conduct seems almost quaint by modern standards. In Sadiq Khan’s London of 2025 you can simply smash through the barrier with impunity like an international rugby forward and get away with it scot-free.
Official statistics bear out the scale of the problem. As The London Standard reported this month, the cost of fare evasion on the TfL network as a whole is now £190 million a year. That’s up nearly 50 per cent from two years ago. While the rest of us law-abiding folk cough up for higher fares (set to increase every year by at least one per cent above inflation for the rest of the decade), what exactly are the fat controllers of TfL doing to tackle fare dodgers and bring them to justice?
Their official answer is: “removing someone from the Tube network is always a last resort”. Yes, that’s right, removing criminal fare dodgers from TfL property is officially always a last resort. As a recent response to a question to the Mayor from the Reform group at City Hall revealed: “Officers follow a structured approach that prioritises de-escalation, using TfL’s five-step appeal process (simple, reasoned, personal, final, action) and the four-step engagement model (engage, educate, encourage, enforce) before taking enforcement action.” I don’t know whether the pen pushers who designed this policy have travelled by Tube recently, but the opportunity to “engage, educate and encourage” fare dodgers is limited at best. They generally display a lightness of foot matched only by Speedy Gonzales.
Those running our great city’s transport network simply do not think this criminality is something that needs to be taken sufficiently seriously
I’m afraid Exhibit B on this topic from a recent Mayor’s Question Time is even worse. In a separate City Hall answer issued in February, the Mayor explains that officers are enabled to “respond positively when dealing with fare evasion, antisocial behaviour and poor behaviour across our network and services”. You read that correctly: those officers charged with fighting fare evasion — who indeed have some delegated police powers — are trained to “respond positively”. Yes, in a city where public transport prices are now higher than in any other comparable settlement in the world — higher than Paris, Tokyo and New York — the official stated policy of those responsible for enforcement against fare evaders is to “respond positively” to open criminality.
And this is the dark truth at the heart of London’s fare evasion problem. It’s not a question of TfL budgets, staffing levels, prosecutions or the technology of the transport infrastructure. It’s not even a question of economics or the intricacies of criminology. It is a problem of attitude and mindset: those running our great city’s transport network simply do not think this criminality is something that needs to be taken sufficiently seriously. How can we, as commuters and passengers, believe TfL’s word when it comes to ensuring the safety of the network if the organisation has stated it will treat fare dodgers “positively”? It is simply creating a charter for “low-level” crime.
And fare dodging creates a dangerous atmosphere that enables more serious crime on the network. Crime on the Tube, excluding fare evasion, has doubled since Khan took office. In the year leading up to March 2024, the latest 12-month period for which data is available, 23,595 crimes were recorded — more than double the number when the Mayor arrived at City Hall. Reported sexual offences are up more than 10 per cent in the latest available figures.
Perhaps this should all be understood in the context of the gold-leafed world in which TfL’s own executives and staff operate. It is mind-blowing that 2,200 TfL staff earned more than £100,000 last year. That is almost 900 more than the previous year. So — in the past year alone — nearly one thousand more employees at TfL had their salaries bumped up to six figures, despite almost every vital metric of customer experience pointing in the wrong direction. TfL commissioner Andy Lord topped the list with a total remuneration package of £639,164. I have to warn Lord that, in the mind of the travelling public, he is at serious risk of becoming forever labelled as a certain character from Thomas the Tank Engine.
As it stands, the Mayor, Lord and his team of “positive” enforcement officers are presiding over an international transport disaster. From the embarrassment of thousands being stuck on the District Line during Wimbledon, to bus drivers plain refusing to get behind the wheel due to the weather, the juggernaut of TfL calamity, self-indulgence and profligacy is spiralling out of control. Things can only get worse. It won’t be long before the public decide they’ve had enough, and their enforcement model will only have a single step: throwing this crew out of City Hall altogether.
Ross Kempsell is a Conservative peer
