A Tube passenger has been fined almost £1,800 by Transport for London (TfL) after repeatedly trying to pay for journeys with an overdrawn card.
The unidentified man racked up £1,200 in unpaid fares after using a contactless payment card without sufficient funds almost 200 times. The fine imposed by TfL comes on top of the outstanding fare amount.
TfL used the example in committee documents in a discussion about how they might consider changing the payment model for their services as more customers tap in and out.
Andy Lord, TfL commissioner, said: “Use of contactless payment cards has grown in the last financial year, increasing by 15 per cent on London Underground and 11 per cent on buses.
“This has been a main area of focus when investigating irregular travel patterns. In the last financial year, our investigations identified 414 individuals who habitually avoided paying for all or part of their journeys, adding up to more than £363,000 of avoided fares.”
He said that in one case identified, the individual failed to correctly validate their contactless payment card 193 times, totalling over £1,200 of unpaid fares.
The individual attended court in April and pleaded guilty to all charges.
“We also identified another individual who was avoiding fares by using a bank card that had insufficient funds,” Mr Lord added.
"Analysis of the card’s usage showed a failure to validate on every journey made in over a year. We used CCTV footage to help find the offender. The individual attended court and pleaded guilty to all offences and was ordered to pay £1,796 to us."
It was not stated how the offender was able to get around the TfL checks.
The guidance asks customers to always use the same device or contactless card to touch in and out to make sure you pay the right fare.
TfL has said it will shortly be launching a new fare evasion poster on the network, which includes the message “a fare is less than a fine”.
