I stood up to a fare-dodger on the Tube while TfL just shrugs

Telegraph

6 days ago

At 8.30pm on an evening last week, I walked into St James's Park underground station. A group of four or five young people were loitering.
As I touched my card on the reader to open the barriers, one of the group tried to push past me. I am the size of an average 11-year-old girl, standing 5ft tall on a good day. I may talk tough on The Telegraph, but I know better than to engage in confrontations which have the potential to escalate.
Yet in that fleeting moment, I surprised myself by making a stand. Perhaps Robert Jenrick's crusade on fare dodging had emboldened me, or I had finally had enough of witnessing malefactors pushing past paying customers on the Tube multiple times a week.
I put my hand up and said, 'No thank you. You can use your own ticket.'
The barrier closed behind me and I headed towards my platform, watched on by Transport for London (TfL) staff.
The next afternoon, at Victoria station, I watched a man following a fare-paying passenger through the gates, cool as a cucumber. It was in broad daylight, and the station was teeming with TfL staff, all simply hanging around.
Why wouldn't you do anything about it, I asked a staff member. It isn't our job, came the answer.
'What is your job?' I probed. The response seemed so absurd that I made a note of it: 'Our job is to assist paying customers, we can't assist customers who don't pay.'
If you can make any sense of this statement, please let me know.
It is understandable that the staff themselves may feel intimidated by these brazen offenders or even fear for their own safety. But their total indifference towards these offences being committed day in and day out on their watch betrays a contempt for those of us who do pay for the service.
TfL's apparent corporate policy, which is reflected in the culture of its staff on the ground, has allowed fare dodging to reach such a stage of late that we appeared to have accepted the offence as a part of London life, until Jenrick decided to confront some of the offenders himself.
For a week or two following Jenrick's video becoming viral on social media, there did appear to be an increased police presence in some stations, while TfL claimed to 'take fare evasion extremely seriously'.
But as the news cycle moved on, so – it seems – did the authorities' interest in the matter.
The vast majority of TfL's income (around 60pc) is generated by fares, followed by government grants and tax intake. Commercial activities, including advertising, make up the rest. Even this revenue stream is dependent on the fares and public funding keeping the train and underground networks commercially viable.
According to TfL, fare evasion costs an estimated £130m each year, with passengers abiding by the law having to shoulder any rises in fares needed to plug the shortfalls.
For those of us who pay for our tickets, Tube and rail fares in London rose by an average of 4.6pc in 2025. This follows what was reported as the biggest rise in transport cost in a decade when fares increased by an average of 5.9pc just two years ago.
An increase in fare dodging therefore has a very real impact on the pockets of the law-abiding commuters who cough up the correct fare for their journey.