Call for taller barriers to cut fare evasion

An estimated 3.5% of fares were evaded in the year to March 2025

Taller ticket barriers, dedicated fare evasion teams in stations and the creation of a taskforce would reduce fare dodging on Transport for London (TfL) services, City Hall Conservatives have claimed.

The number of prosecutions for fare evasion on the Tube reached their highest level for six years in 2023-24, figures obtained by the BBC show.

Thomas Turrell, Conservative transport spokesman, said the mayor of London "continues to pay lip service to the problem in spite of the concern Londoners have when using the Tube".

TfL said its "data-driven strategy" to tackle fare evasion was "already making an impact, with the pan-TfL fare evasion rate dropping to 3.5% from 3.8% in 2023-24".

TfL previously said it had spent nearly £14.2m cracking down on fare dodging across the Tube and £7.7m on the bus network in 2023-24, collecting £1.3m in penalty charges.

Penalty fares are set at £100, reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days.

The Conservatives said TfL's target was to reduce fare evasion from 3.4% to 1.5% by 2030, however based on current trends, that "simply isn't going to happen", said Turrell.

"Every Londoner has watched someone push through the barriers or jump over them to avoid paying the fare, knowing full well that they will be picking up the cost of the offender's non-payment in the form of eye-watching fare rises," he said.

"It's not good enough, and Londoners are fed up with watching this happen unchallenged."

But Elly Baker, chair of the Transport Committee on the London Assembly, said the Tories were "political grandstanding".

"A recent cross-party Transport Committee report focused on improving safety and confidence through better staffing.

"The Conservatives could have put some of their suggestions into this report, but chose not to. They have chosen political grandstanding rather than suggesting practical solutions."

In May, shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick posted a video on social media of him approaching people who had not paid.

At the time, the Conservative said he was "sick to death of people fare dodging" and felt he needed to "highlight the issue".

Responding to Turrell's report, TfL said in a statement that fare evasion was a criminal offence and robbed Londoners of "investment in safe, clean and reliable public transport".

It added: "That's why we are strengthening our efforts to detect and deter fare evaders, including expanding our team of professional investigators, 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 strategy we now have in place will help us bring down fare evasion even more and ensure more persistent evaders face justice."