Tough new action is being taken by Transport for London (TfL) against fare evaders and people who abuse staff by increasing penalty fares and issuing staff with body-worn video cameras.
The increase to £100 is designed to act as a further deterrent to fare evasion.
Last year, TfL prosecuted 19,614 people for fare evasion, a 56% increase over 2022, and 421 people were investigated for habitual fare evasion on over 50,000 fraudulent journeys, equating to more than £300,000 in lost fare revenue, with 190 having already been prosecuted.
Fare evasion is also linked to approximately half of all reported work-related violence and aggression incidents towards frontline staff.
With fare evasion often being a trigger for violence and aggression towards staff, they are now being issued with body-worn video (BWV) that film incidents in 60-second loops and automatically saves the footage.
The risk of assaults on colleagues has been proven to be greatly reduced when wearing a BWV camera, and can also provide vital evidence when offenders are prosecuted.
An Irregular travel analysis platform (ITAP) is now used to investigate and detect the most prolific offenders by detecting fare evasion and revenue loss from patterns in ticketing and passenger data, identifying people who avoid paying for all or part of their journey.
A recent case of fare evasion is a passenger using a Contactless Payment Card and failing to validate correctly for their journey, but it was found the passengers had done the same on 193 occasions, amounting to a total of over £1,200 in unpaid fares.
Another passenger fare used a bank card with insufficient funds to pay the fare on every journey made in over a year.
CCTV footage assisted in locating and detecting the offender who was taken to court where they pleaded guilty and was ordered to pay TfL £1,795.60.
The Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan said: “TfL relies on revenue from fares to be able to deliver the safe, clean and reliable public transport that Londoners deserve. Fare evasion deprives us of much-needed revenue and so I welcome this tough new action from TfL to increase enforcement and ensure more fare evaders are brought to justice. Latest figures show real progress is being made, but I will continue to work with TfL and the British Transport Police to crack down on fare evasion, and build a better, safer and fairer London for everyone.”
Siwan Hayward, TfL's Director of Security, Policing and Enforcement, said: “The overwhelming majority of our customers pay the correct fare, however, a minority do attempt to travel without a valid ticket. Fare evasion is a criminal offence. Fare evasion robs Londoners of vital investment in a safe, frequent and reliable transport.
“Fare evasion impacts our customers and our staff, and can make public transport feel unsafe. Sadly, fare evasion is often a trigger for violence and aggression towards our colleagues. We strive to ensure that wherever possible it is fare evaders themselves, not fare or taxpayers, pay the cost of fare evasion. As today's data shows, anyone who fare evades will be caught and have to pay the consequences.”
