Transport for London is prosecuting about 10,000 fewer fare dodgers a year than immediately before the pandemic, latest figures revealed on Friday.
The scale of fare evasion is also soaring, with Tube station staff alerting enforcement teams to more than 756,000 cases last year – up 51 per cent on the previous year.
Fare evasion costs TfL an estimated £130m a year in lost income – enough to enable fares to be frozen annually. Mayor Sadiq Khan is spending £123m keeping TfL pay-as-you-go fares unchanged until March 2025.
TfL announced on Friday that it had prosecuted 19,614 people last year for fare dodging across all its modes of transport, up 56 per cent on 2022.
But separate TfL data from a recent freedom of information request revealed there were 29,113 prosecutions in 2019/20, immediately before the pandemic.
The vast majority of TfL’s enforcement action is on the buses. Only 4,325 of the 18,765 prosecutions in 2022/23 related to the London Underground.
Tube station staff can report fare dodging via an app on their tablet devices. A total of 756,619 alerts were made last year – the highest on record, and up 51 per cent on the 499,424 in 2022.
TfL was unable to answer a request for the number of people who had jumped a barrier without paying since 2018.
It is thought the cost of living crisis has led to an increase in the number of passengers failing to pay for their journey.
Since last week, all frontline staff have been fitted with body-worn cameras in a bid to reduce the risk they face from fare dodgers. Fares disputes trigger about half of the incidents of violence or aggression towards TfL staff.
The penalty fare will increase on March 3 from £80 to £100 in a bid to make it a tougher deterrent and to recoup more of the cost of the 450-strong enforcement team.
TfL estimates that 3.9 per cent of journeys are dodged. About £7.2m is recouped through penalty fares and income from successful prosecutions.
Fare evasion is a criminal offence that can lead to a fine of up to £1,000 and a criminal record. TfL issues penalty fare notices (PFNs) are issued to passengers not suspected of fraudulent, deliberate or repeated fare evasion.
Last year TfL investigated 421 people for habitual fare evasion – more than 50,000 “irregular journeys” across the Underground that left TfL more than £300,000 out of pocket. Some 190 have been prosecuted to date.
Siwan Hayward, TfL’s director of security, said: “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 tax payers, pay the cost of fare evasion.”
Mr Khan insisted “real progress” was being made to tackle fare dodgers. “I will continue to work with TfL and the British Transport Police to crack down on fare evasion,” he said.
A TfL spokeswoman, asked why prosecutions were below 2019/20 levels, said there had been a “phased return to ticket checking” since the pandemic. “Passenger levels are also still recovering and not at the numbers we had in 2019/2020,” she said.
Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson Caroline Pidgeon said: “While of course it is welcome news prosecutions for fare evasions are up on last year, it is deeply disappointing they still remain below the levels for 2019/20, especially with lower journeys now than before the pandemic.
“Honest commuters end up paying for fare evasion which costs TfL huge amounts in lost revenue. We need to see more decisive action against those who are playing the system.”
