Fare dodging: London's transport blight

Increased penalty fines for fare dodging are working as an "effective deterrent", according to the London mayor.

However, Tories on the London Assembly said Sadiq Khan and his team are "in denial" about "the scale of the issue", despite them putting up fines for not paying to travel on Transport for London services from £80 to £100 last year.

More than double TFL target

Between April 2023 and March 2024, fare evasion across the TfL network stood at an estimated 3.8% of all journeys, said the mayor. The rate came down to 3.4% in the months following the penalty increase.

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But the mayor's critics point out that fare evasion across the network is still "more than double" TfL's target of below 1.5%, said Southwark News, and some Londoners are losing patience with fare evaders.

If you wait by the barriers at "literally any" Tube station at rush hour in London, said James Hanson in The Spectator, "within 60 seconds" you're "likely" to see at least half a dozen young men "barge their way through the barriers without a care in the world". No one is "shocked" and the "hapless high-viz clad" TfL staff are "powerless to stop" the offenders.

Not just an economic decision

A study of Santiago’s public transport found that fare dodgers could be categorised into four groups: those who view non-payment as a form of protest, those who evade fares when they believe the risk of being caught is low, accidental evaders and ambivalent evaders who sometimes pay but don't always see the point of it.

A "surprising insight" from research is that fare evasion isn't only an economic decision, but "a social one, too", said The Independent. When passengers "perceive the system as unfair" due to unreliable service, high fares or a lack of investment, then fare evasion rises.

Studies have also found that when fare dodging behaviour is normalised within a city or demographic, it "spreads like contagion".

Meanwhile, when a trial in Queensland reduced fares to just 50 cents (about 25p), the Australian state’s early data showed a 27% drop in fare evasion fines, which suggests that cheaper public transport "could reduce fare evasion".

That data "aligns" with the idea that fare evasion is, "at least partially", a "rational economic decision", and when the price is lower, the "incentive to evade diminishes" – but does not "completely disappear".

Is greater surveillance the answer?

C2C, a London commuter train service that serves Essex, is "fighting back", said London's The Standard. By boosting the number of revenue protection officers and using more than 2,000 CCTV cameras, it issued more than 8,000 fines and recovered more than £470,000 in 2024. Some long-term evaders were ordered to repay nearly £10,000.

Tories on the London Assembly said the mayor's team will only be able to make serious progress in tackling fare dodging on TfL with support from police officers. Hanson, in The Spectator, supports this idea, suggesting that two police officers are "stationed by the barriers at every major tube station in the capital".