Black-cab drivers wrongly sent penalty charges

London's 14,500 black cabs are exempt from the charges

Hundreds of black-cab drivers in London have been wrongly penalised for entering the congestion charge area or the Ultra Low Emission Zone (Ulez).

The penalty charges were for non-payment of the fee to enter the zones, even though the drivers are exempt.

The Licensed Taxi Drivers' Association (LTDA) said it had been inundated with members asking for help after receiving penalty charges and becoming worried.

Transport for London (TfL), which issued the penalties, said it happened because of an IT glitch. A spokesperson said: "We are cancelling the penalty charge notices and apologise for any inconvenience caused.”

'This shouldn't have happened'

The transport body said there had been an "error with a routine data upload".

The LTDA said members began reporting the issue on Thursday and that about 500 drivers called its helpline within a few hours on Friday.

General secretary Steve McNamara said he believed the number of drivers affected ran into the thousands.

He said many of them were worried by receiving the penalty charge notices, in case they increased before the matter could be resolved.

"Some have asked if they should just pay them to make them go away," Mr McNamara said.

"What happens when you get a penalty charge notice, if you don't deal with it or you don't pay it or you don't respond to it very quickly, it escalates into a higher amount... If you don't deal with them, the next thing you've got is bailiffs knocking on your door."

He said another batch of wrongly issued penalty charges were sent out last month, which were believed to be due to a recent IT hack on TfL and which were later cancelled.

However, on this occasion, drivers have been unable to get through on TfL's phone lines, Mr Mcnamara said.

"Members can't get through to them, so they're all ringing us and consequently our phones are jumping off the hook... this should not have happened."

Drivers of non-compliant cars must pay £12.50 to drive in the Ulez or face a £180 penalty charge

Lee Drinkwater, who runs a fleet of electric taxis, said he knew of 300 penalty charge notices sent to his drivers.

Mr Drinkwater said TfL advised him to send in licence details for each driver to have the charges cancelled.

"I can't have staff spending this much time on the tickets... it's not acceptable," he said.