Price rises imposed by Transport for London (TfL) are being wiped out by the high cost of fare-dodging, according to new data.
TfL raised fares in March across their bus, Underground and overground networks, with the projected £168 million raised by the hikes due to maintain and improve existing services.
However, new analysis by the Centre for Government Reform suggests that fare evasion on the Tube and Elizabeth line almost matches the saving - costing TfL £165 million a year.
As a result, the entire price increase went to covering losses caused by people evading fares, according to the think tank.
Ameer Kotecha, the chief executive of the Centre for Government Reform, said: “Londoners were told the March fare rise was necessary to improve the network. What they weren’t told is that fare evasion is costing TfL almost exactly the same amount the rise was expected to generate across the entire network.
“Before asking Londoners to dig deeper into their pockets, TfL needs to get serious about enforcement. This is not a funding problem, but sheer incompetence.
“Almost everyone using the Tube will see people pushing through the barriers day in day out. TfL should get tough on fare dodging and stop asking hard-working Londoners to subsidise the lifestyles of criminals.”
A separate report by the Conservatives found that fare dodgers were increasingly escaping justice, with the number of prosecutions for fare dodging falling from around 29,000 pre-pandemic to around 14,000 convictions this year.
According to Freedom of Information data, fare evasion cost TfL around £190 million in the year 2022-23, up from £116 million in 2018-19.
It is estimated that 3.5% of the 3.6 billion annual passenger journeys across the TfL network go unpaid - the equivalent of 126 million free journeys every year, or 2.4 million every week.
The Centre for Government Reform calculated that the Tube ticket evasion rate for the first three quarters of 2025-26 was 5.03% for a cost of £141 million, while the Elizabeth line evasion rate in 2024-25 was at 3.43% for a cost of £24m.
Robert Jenrick, Reform UK’s economics spokesman, said: “It’s a slap in the face for the law-abiding majority that their fares are going up to pay for fare dodgers.”
Mr Jenrick, who was filmed challenging a fare dodger at station gates in 2025, added: “This problem will keep getting worse until fare dodgers know they’ll be fined and prosecuted. Actions must have consequences.”
A TfL spokesman said: “By focusing our enforcement teams on locations with a high prevalence of people pushing through gates and using the latest technology to target the most prolific fare evaders across the network, the pan-TfL fare evasion rate has dropped to 3.5%, down from 3.9% in 2022/23.
“This builds on the work of our team of more than 500 uniformed officers already deployed across the network to deal with fare evasion and other anti-social behaviour, keeping staff and customers safe.
“By increasing enforcement activity to tackle fare evasion, last financial year we issued over 69,000 penalty fares and reported over 21,000 individuals for possible prosecution.
“We are committed to reducing the current rate of fare evasion to 1.5% by 2030/31 financial year and the strategy we now have in place will help us ensure more persistent evaders face justice.”
