The cost of vaulting the tube station barriers just went up.
As of 3 March 2024, TfL has raised the penalty for fare evasion from £80 to £100 (reduced to £50 if paid within 21 days).
Fare evasion costs TfL (and by proxy, Londoners) a staggering £130m-£150m a year, even though 96% of passengers do pay the correct fare. To wit, we're being mugged off by a small contingent of system abusers. A recent case found that a single passenger had evaded paying on 193 occasions, totalling unpaid fares of over £1,200.
Taking its cue from the Department for Transport's decision to raise the National Rail penalty fare to £100, TfL says that it has also stepped up its game with delivering justice — 19,614 prosecutions were made for fare evasion in 2023, a 56% increase on 2022. (Perhaps this also indicates that more people are now doing the dirty — particularly given the ongoing cost of living crisis.) TfL is also now employing ITAP (Irregular Travel Analytics Platform) to detect fare dodging patterns.
Of course, it's not just a hundred smackers you risk losing when you jump a barrier, but your dignity too:
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