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London traditionalist Ticket interceptors and dedicated fare evasion teams have been called in at stations to help cut down fare evasion.
is one in about 20 tube passengers rent deferment – At a cost of £130 million per year – transport to london (TfL) The figures came out earlier this year.
TfL spends almost £14.2 million to crack down on fare riggers tube network and an additional £7.7 million on the bus network in 2023–2024, raising £1.3 million Penalty fee.
The transport provider said its “data-driven strategy” to tackle the issue is “already making an impact”, reporting fare evasion falling from 3.8 per cent to 3.5 per cent in 2023-2024.
But Thomas Turrell, the Conservative transport spokesman at City Hall, told the BBC TfL’s target of reducing fare cuts to 1.5 per cent by 2030 is “not going to happen”.
“Every Londoner has seen someone crossing or jumping over barriers to avoid paying their fare, knowing full well that non-payment will cost them the price in the form of a fare increase,” Mr Turrell said.
According to Ellie Baker, chair of the transport committee in the London Assembly, there was a recent cross-party report that focused on improving safety through better staffing, but the Conservatives decided not to include suggestions in it.
In May, the shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick He himself went to the London Underground to capture fare evaders. He said: “It is distressing to see so many people break the law and get away with it.”
A video posted on social media platform X shows him interrogating passengers who crossed the barriers without paying for tickets. He faced verbal abuse and warnings from a man who claimed he had a knife.
To crack down on fare evasion, TfL appointed 500 enforcement officers to reduce the number of non-paying Tube passengers.
TfL responded to Mr Turrell in a statement, saying: “We are strengthening our efforts to detect and stop fare evaders, including expanding our team of professional investigators, focusing our enforcement teams on locations where there are high footfalls of people passing through the gates and using the latest technology to target the most frequent fare evaders across the network.”