City Hall Tories claim London mayor is “in denial about the scale of the issue”, reports Noah Vickers, Local Democracy Reporter

Sadiq Khan on the Elizabeth Line (credit GLA)

Sir Sadiq Khan has hailed the impact of increased penalty fines for fare dodging, saying that the measure is working as an “effective deterrent”.

The mayor also insisted that fare evasion on London’s transport network remains “lower than many comparable cities in Europe and North America”, while admitting it “denies Londoners of investment in a safe, frequent and reliable transport service”.

City Hall Tories said Khan and his team were “in denial about the scale of the issue” and would only be able to make serious progress in tackling it with support from police officers.

Until the spring of last year, the penalty fine for fare dodging on all Transport for London (TfL) services was £80, reduced to £40 if paid within 21 days. But in March this was increased to a fine of £100, reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days – mirroring an identical increase made by the Department for Transport on national rail services.

Between April 2023 and March 2024, fare evasion across the TfL network stood at an estimated 3.8% of all journeys, the mayor said in answer to a written question from a London Assembly member last month.

Sir Sadiq pointed out that this rate came down slightly in the months following the penalty increase, as it stood at 3.4% between April and June of 2024.

“This is an early indication that the increased penalty fare of £100 is proving to be an effective deterrent,” the mayor said.

Figures covering the period spanning July to September 2024 would ordinarily be available by this point too, but have been delayed due to the measures put in place following the cyber attack on TfL last year, Sir Sadiq added.

The mayor’s critics point out that fare evasion across the network is still more than double above TfL’s target of reducing it to below 1.5%.

Keith Prince, City Hall Conservatives’ transport spokesman, said: “City Hall authorities are in denial about the scale of the issue.

“The Met Police withdrew from supporting fare evasion operations over a lack of political support from the mayor about their work, and so if Khan is serious about tackling this issue he needs to get around the table with the Met and support them to get back on the beat with TfL staff at stations.”

Prince’s claim refers to the fact that the Met announced in May last year that they had stopped their “involvement in supporting Transport for London fare evasion operations”, after a Met officer was convicted of assaulting a woman as she was wrongly accused of bus fare evasion.

In a further written answer on the topic of fare dodging, Khan told the Assembly: “Fare evasion steals vital revenue from TfL and denies Londoners of investment in a safe, frequent and reliable transport service.

“TfL is taking a bold, target-driven and agile approach to tackling fare evasion, which not only impacts TfL’s finances but also the confidence and safety of its frontline teams and fare-paying customers on the network.

“Fare evasion is a problem affecting cities around the world. Through the continued efforts of our operational teams and innovations led by TfL’s revenue protection programme, the rate in London remains lower than many comparable cities in Europe and North America.

“For example, in New York, the rate of fare evasion sits at 13% on the metro system. The same rate in London would equate to over £400m of lost revenue per year. We continue to monitor best practice through regular international benchmarking meetings.”

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