TfL anti fare evasion effort intensifies

[Coolzac]

Surely a concerted effort to reduce fare evasion would raise more money than it would cost? Especially in the longer term as it would put off many people who aren't die hard fare evaders but opportunistic?

 

[Tetchytyke]

Most people? I can't think of anyone I know personally who has told me they have had a bad run in with a security guard.

Then you’re very lucky, although my issues have always been with door staff at pubs, which has always been a problematic subset of the security industry.

In this thread we can't even afford security guards, or more police, or, in fact, anything that might make things better. Not really feeling the wealth.

The wealth, of course, is concentrated in the hands of a tiny minority of people who have a strong aversion to paying tax. They might move to Dubai if you try and tax them, or something.

It’s why GDP is such a poor measure. The top 30 wealthiest people in the UK own more wealth than the bottom 30 million people. So the UK as a country is wealthy but most people within it are not.

As for fare evasion, as with so much it comes down to the social contract. Most people pay because they think it is the right thing to do by society. But we are now in a position where people don’t see that society reciprocates and doesn’t do the right thing by its people. So why be a good little boy and pay your fares? Why behave?

“There’s no such thing as society,” said the Prime Minister responsible for starting this mess. People listened.

Security guards won’t change much. I still smile at North Shields metro station. They installed ticket barriers so people started climbing the fence outside. So they raised the fence, and people started giving each other leg-ups to get over it. So they put spikes on the top, and I saw someone wearing goalkeeper gloves to avoid the spikes. Build a ten foot fence and someone will come along with a twelve foot ladder.

 

[Ralph Ayres]

Surely a concerted effort to reduce fare evasion would raise more money than it would cost? Especially in the longer term as it would put off many people who aren't die hard fare evaders but opportunistic?

Possibly, but hard to assess. Inevitably though once fare evasion has dropped, someone will then decide that there's less need for enforcement so it will be cut back allowing evasion to go up again. It's gone in cycles throughout my entire career.

 

[Sonic1234]

Surely a concerted effort to reduce fare evasion would raise more money than it would cost? Especially in the longer term as it would put off many people who aren't die hard fare evaders but opportunistic?

I wouldn't be surprised if most revenue protection departments are loss making. Particularly when you are protecting £2 Oyster fares. There is also the issue that you catch those who have made a mistake or are opportunistic, rather than those who will never pay because they're more difficult.

Similar to how most council parking departments are loss making, and parking enforcement in small towns is pretty much non existent.

 

[Starmill]

The spectacle is pathetic though. The railway should be able to enforce its own rules like "you should pay" which will make it a more pleasant place for people (and staff) to be.

The railway should have security on hand to tackle people like this. In my experience there is a high correlation between fare evasion and other types of unpleasant behaviour on the railway.

Even if all they do is have two or three of their own staff on hand they tend to be able to actually use their words a bit. You don't need to restrain someone to tell them they need a ticket, noting obviously that you can't go around putting yourself at risk. Unfortunately, it's very very common for SWR / GTR gatelines to have just a single member of their contractors on duty, someone who isn't even directly employed, is paid minimum wage, and has little stake in the train service. They regularly just open the gate for someone who says they've lost their ticket, or says they have no ticket and no money. Again no blame on them for that.

 

[125Spotter]

I remember reading Monzo have to make online card payment authorisation decisions in something like a ceiling of 200 milliseconds

I can’t speak for Monzo, but this is generally correct – the precise threshold may differ but it is the order of hundreds of milliseconds. After that, the scheme may make a decision on behalf of the issuer, so the outcome of the transaction decision becomes dependent on how the issuer’s product has been set up. Some may default to always decline, others may allow the scheme to decide on their behalf, but with the concomitant risk that the issuer becomes liable in the case of overspend by a customer when the scheme decided. Of course, TfL will still allow entry if the scheme declines as the card check and initial authorisation happens shortly after the barriers have opened.

Running a card programme is a huge undertaking for an issuer who is often on the hook for the liability arising out of misuse and fraud. And my learning over this time is that if you offer a card scheme, the fraudsters will come and test/probe you for weaknesses – ours was small and yet there were examples of attempts at ‘double spend’ attacks in our databases within hours of the scheme first going live.

I have been involved with investigating large amounts of fraud perpetuated using cards across the TfL network. There are various loopholes that customers can exploit with product setup which makes this tricky to defend. In many cases chargebacks are ineffective as TfL are operating within the scheme rules for mass and rapid transport payments.

 

[Starmill]

I think we all know the UK's GDP is high, but that does not disqualify it from being a poor country unless you are taking the definition absolutely literally and want to quote back GDP per capita as if it disproves anything. Take a walk around and you will notice you live in a total dump compared to many places which have a lower GDP per capita. Britain has an air of poverty and listlessness. You live in a poor country and it is getting worse. Denying it is part of the issue.

In this thread we can't even afford security guards, or more police, or, in fact, anything that might make things better. Not really feeling the wealth.

Britain has lost the will to enforce any sort of standard in anything - much less public behaviour - and there is no pride in much of what happens in public life.

I agree the UK has a serious problem with areas of life where we are privately wealthy (in general, not a specific person) and publicly impoverished. The railway is reflecting wider society in that regard.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Dec 2025 ==

I can’t speak for Monzo, but this is generally correct – the precise threshold may differ but it is the order of hundreds of milliseconds.

I did suspect that the availabile technology would be able to support one second or less. Thank you for confirming.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Dec 2025 ==

I believe it's currently an arrestable offence to refuse to provide contact details to a Railway Official ... So the legislation / ruling only might need to tweek to cover identify cards ..

A police officer would be needed to carry out the arrest, or the threat of the arrest, and they already have the right to require your name and address to ID check you. As you say the Bylaws do indeed provide for authorised staff to check your name and address. Most staff won't be able to do this but the Bylaws do provide for it all the same.

 

[Hadders]

Surely a concerted effort to reduce fare evasion would raise more money than it would cost? Especially in the longer term as it would put off many people who aren't die hard fare evaders but opportunistic?

What do you mean by concerted effort?

If this involves additional members of staff:

How many additional members of staff are required?
What is their rate of pay?
How much does it cost to recruit, train and equip them with the approproate equipment?
What are the pension and national insurance and employee benefit additional costs?
How many additional staff are needed to supervise and manage these additional staff and what is the cost of them?
How many additional members of staff are needed to deal with cases in the back-office (investigations, producing court packs etc)

Then, how much additional income are you going to get and is it more than the costs listed above.

There is of course the spin-off to consider of reducing petty crime, anti-social behaviour etc to consider.

How does London fare evasion compare to other large cities such as New York or Paris?

 

[ChilliSauce]

TfL clearly have a policy of prosecuting Fare Evasion ...full-stop. Basically get the Fare Evaider in Court.

The Train Operating Companies seem to have adopted an alternative approach with the MG11 and looking back at Historical fares purchased and then basically under the title of "Out of Court Settlement" offering a price . Take it or leave it ...if you leave it then we might go for a court hearing ...

I think it remains to be seen which is the most effective method of trying to punish fare evasion, and which process delivers a better financial result for the Operator (which could very well be H.M Government)

 

[Starmill]

TfL clearly have a policy of prosecuting Fare Evasion ...full-stop. Basically get the Fare Evaider in Court.

The Train Operating Companies seem to have adopted an alternative approach with the MG11 and looking back at Historical fares purchased and then basically under the title of "Out of Court Settlement" offering a price . Take it or leave it ...if you leave it then we might go for a court hearing ...

I think it remains to be seen which is the most effective method of trying to punish fare evasion, and which process delivers a better financial result for the Operator (which could very well be H.M Government)

TfL may have that policy but their revenue staff presence is not exactly very strong. It's especially missing on their three big franchises (DLR, Crossrail and London Overground).

 

[bramling]

TfL may have that policy but their revenue staff presence is not exactly very strong. It's especially missing on their three big franchises (DLR, Crossrail and London Overground).

Exactly. And LU is no better. The potential consequences may be high, but the chances of getting caught are very low, especially if prepared to front it off.

TFL are adept at catching the likes of a student who has borrowed granny’s freedom pass, but that’s only half the story.

 

[Watershed]

For a busy station that 33 people could be throughput in 30s. This is why 3% seems high to me, because I could watch somewhere like Liverpool Street for 1 minute and not see this.

I think it's highly situation dependent. A significant proportion of Liverpool Street passengers at peak time will be working in well-paid City jobs. Whilst a few of them do engage in fare evasion, the vast majority don't.

Compare that with places in the middle or outer suburbs and the position is quite different. For three of the LU suburban stations that I have used regularly, I have almost always encountered somebody pushing through the barriers or tailgating whenever I've used them. At the station I use most regularly, the barriers seem to be an operation barely 50% of the time.

 

[ChilliSauce]

TfL may have that policy but their revenue staff presence is not exactly very strong. It's especially missing on their three big franchises (DLR, Crossrail and London Overground).

Given that CrossRail is in effect the joining up of the GEML suburban service to the same on the GWML with the tunnel bit in the middle then if fare evasion is so rife "now" I guess the only conclusion being it was like that before when the services were run by the respective TOCs.

Yellow Oyster Validators inside the gate lines, TfL might be wise to withdraw all of those ASAP...

If the punter needs to change their ticket for onwards travel rather than being in possession of a through ticket, that is their choice and they should accept that means a touch out with 1 ticket at the gate into the public side . then a touch in with their onwards ticket for Onwards Travel ..

 

[Starmill]

Yellow Oyster Validators inside the gate lines, TfL might be wise to withdraw all of those ASAP...

The issue is, the places they've been installed are led by the intelligence of where people are actually needing to change onto pay as you go though.

For example say someone buys a Horsham to London Thameslink single on their phone. No other digital fulfilment option is available than this. Singles and returns for the Underground zones are not available on smartcards or as etickets / mtickets. Currently they get off the Thameslink train at Farringdon, tap on with their bank card and tap off when they get to where they're going on the Elizabeth line. Before those readers were installed people were showing up at say Canary Wharf with their eticket and being unable to exit. This is the reason why the signage and readers had to be installed in the specific place. If you took the readers away, would people just chance it, knowing it's incredibly unlikely that they'll be charged a PF onboard, or would they go upstairs needlessly, reach over the ticket gate to the other side and try to touch in? Remember their ticket won't open the Underground gates, so the alternative is they ask to be let out the manual gate and then immediately tap back in again. It just doesn't make any sense to people, so they won't do it, even if the staff insist they have to. If most front line staff are told this is the process they won't even relay it to customers because they feel it makes them look stupid.

 

[Egg Centric]

Exactly. And LU is no better. The potential consequences may be high, but the chances of getting caught are very low, especially if prepared to front it off.

TFL are adept at catching the likes of a student who has borrowed granny’s freedom pass, but that’s only half the story.

The reality is that it's a "life hack" if you have no aspiration at all to be an antisocial willyhead and there's nothing much that can be done about this without the cure being worse than the disease. Or at least the latter is my opinion; some countries like Singapore take the other view and are happy with caning them or indefinite prison sentences or whatever. I don't really see this as something the railways can do anything about as it's not a "railway thing".

The only civilised way to minimise it is to minimise the people who have no aspiration at all and that requires sorting education, perverse benefit/taxation incentives, and housing. But that's hard and the steps necessary repel voters so...

 

[Starmill]

I think it's highly situation dependent. A significant proportion of Liverpool Street passengers at peak time will be working in well-paid City jobs. Whilst a few of them do engage in fare evasion, the vast majority don't.

Compare that with places in the middle or outer suburbs and the position is quite different. For three of the LU suburban stations that I have used regularly, I have almost always encountered somebody pushing through the barriers or tailgating whenever I've used them. At the station I use most regularly, the barriers seem to be an operation barely 50% of the time.

Indeed. Or if you use Mill Hill East or Hanwell or another station that doesn't even have ticket gates, well...

 

[Sonic1234]

Indeed. Or if you use Mill Hill East or Hanwell or another station that doesn't even have ticket gates, well...

But the other end of their journey almost certainly does.

This is the SE Metro thinking - gate London Terminals and the major towns, the rest you can leave unstaffed. Near enough everyone is going to London or one of the major centres.

 

[Hadders]

Yellow Oyster Validators inside the gate lines, TfL might be wise to withdraw all of those ASAP...

Much bigger fish to fry than that.

In any case if you did do something like that at somewhere like Stratford you’d put even more pressure on the already overcrowded subways and gatelines.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The difficulty is that neither of these methods deal with the “not going to pay, what you going to do?” types. I’ve seen it so many times where revenue ask someone for a ticket and all they get is a mumbled response like “I want go London” which just gets repeated every time revenue say anything further.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 21 Dec 2025 ==



..........................

I agree. Plenty of people just jump or force the gates and get confrontational if a member of staff/revenue react.

These sort of people will only react to enforcement by OVERWHELMING force. Threatening to take them to court or collecting their details is not going deter them.

---

On buses I see people just walking straight on. Sometimes at night when coming home from Croydon I feel like I might be the only one with a ticket/Oyster. This results in fewer busses because the patronage is not registered. One I notice a lot more recently is young people not presenting an Oyster - either they do not understand the need to show an Oyster card even if free OR they have become accustomed to free travel and now they are older the thought of paying is hard to accept.

Is free travel for under elevens in London actually creating a problem for the future ?.

For buses perhaps the only thing a bus driver can do is refuse to move but that could still be stressful.

.....................................

I find it quite telling that several people on the forum say they regularly have negative interactions with security staff. What are you all doing and why does this never happen to me? Or, in fact, anyone I can think of in real life?

I very rarely have trouble with staff/security *. But some people I know do seem to be more likely to - I think it just depends how you come across and how you deal with a confrontation.

*= My worst as an adult was decades ago platform staff trying to get me off Kings Cross. I asked why, trainspotting not allowed they said. They then went straight to threatening to call the police - I told them to go ahead. Nothing happened.

As a teenager I got thrown of Tamworth often enough and Stafford once. No trainspotters allowed. I was less confident in those days !.

Indeed. Or if you use Mill Hill East or Hanwell or another station that doesn't even have ticket gates, well...

+

But the other end of their journey almost certainly does.

This is the SE Metro thinking - gate London Terminals and the major towns, the rest you can leave unstaffed. Near enough everyone is going to London or one of the major centres.

Beggars on Thameslink use un-gated stations to the North of London and/or un-gated stations to the South to gain access to the trains. I also notice many get off at London Bridge or Blackfriars at night to ply their trade Southbound to East Croydon then change again to go back North on the next train and so on.

---

The fact is that the fare dodgers that are not caught without force are the ones that need dealing with the most perhaps. It is not just about lost revenue. It risks getting to the stage where public transport seems unwelcoming - then fare paying passengers will not use public transport.

An example is when I tried to persuade my family to use public transport to get to a party in Harrow from Croydon.
Two over 60s with free travel, one under 11 with free travel and two adults that would have to pay. Effectively all four adults pay really as we pay taxes, and the child will pay taxes one day.

Refused to go by train and opted for the car instead despite the driver inclined to drink. The reason was not wanting to rub shoulders with undesirables. Granddaughter had recently experienced a very late night Thameslink with me after a bad delay getting back to London from the North. So many undesirables (beggars and ranting oddities) she felt scared - really wanted to get off at Blackfriars which I knew was not a good idea. So she refused to go to the party by train.

I doubt very much the scrotes that graffiti trains on the inside have considered buying a ticket. My granddaughter is scared to use a tagged loo. Why should she suffer - make them suffer.

If nothing is done about feral behaviour including ticket less travelers forcing themselves on we will end up with public transport not being for law abiding citizens. Then the law abiding citizens will ask why they should pay for others.

 

[Starmill]

But the other end of their journey almost certainly does.

This is the SE Metro thinking - gate London Terminals and the major towns, the rest you can leave unstaffed. Near enough everyone is going to London or one of the major centres.

Station / security / gateline staff will usually just let someone out if they say no ticket no money and want to go out of the station. They may warn them not to board a train without a ticket, or pass a description of them to the police or revenue, but that's about it. Most of them aren't even empowered by the company to sell tickets personally, or issue Penalty Fares.

 

[bramling]

Station / security / gateline staff will usually just let someone out if they say no ticket no money and want to go out of the station. They may warn them not to board a train without a ticket, or pass a description of them to the police or revenue, but that's about it. Most of them aren't even empowered by the company to sell tickets personally, or issue Penalty Fares.

Something that’s become an issue over the last few years, there seem to be slightly more “local” journeys being made than might have been the case a generation ago. Just on my local line, it very much used to be the case that once the train had left London it would generally just be dropping people off, at least until the point where there started to be people joining for the likes of Cambridge at the other end. Something like a Letchworth terminator would barely pick anyone up at all. This isn’t quite the case now, there seems to be more local journeys.

Same on TFL, there are plenty of journeys now like Edgware to Hendon Central or Colindale to Golders Green, and I suspect the level of evasion on these sorts of journeys is higher. These will be the types who will cause trouble if challenged as well.

 

[Cowley]

The discussion about “Auditors” is now here:

The ethics (or otherwise) of online Auditors.

Only because of the aesthetic Britain chooses for its security guards. That is a choice. It is not the same worldwide. mods note - split from this thread I’m not sure that’s the reason (though it may be part of it). My feeling is that most people find they have had bad experiences with the...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[fandroid]

TfL may have that policy but their revenue staff presence is not exactly very strong. It's especially missing on their three big franchises (DLR, Crossrail and London Overground).

The only onboard ticket checks I have ever experienced have been on DLR (regularly) and Overground (not regularly but often enough to deter any silly thoughts).

In all my long life I've never had a ticket check on an Underground train.

Judging from many comments on here there seems to be the completely impractical idea that TfL should reduce fare avoidance to zero. That will never happen. They'll aim, as every transport undertaking does, to have enforcement at a level which deters the casual impulse to cheat, but doesn't cost a disproportionate sum to carry out.

That's exactly how every police force in the UK (and most of the world) deals with any form of crime. We cannot expect TfL to do different with what is essentially quite minor crimes.

I'll repeat what I've said twice already. We are hyper aware of obvious cheating, but ignore the vast majority in the background who quietly pay and don't come to our attention.

Liverpool Street LUL station doesn't just deal with City workers! It links to just about everywhere else in London, so assumptions about passenger wealth, are just that, assumptions.

I'll go back to my Walthamstow example. It's a wealthier place than it used to be, but its inhabitants still reflect a wide spectrum of incomes, and I doubt that there are many in the upper decile of incomes. The ones I saw on Friday reflected that and they easily outnumbered by 30 to 1 or more, the obvious fare dodgers. London is a huge city with literally millions of people daily using TfL services. It would be odd if we didn't spot some abusers within that horde.

Lastly, the purists on here don't seem to appreciate the deterrent effect of obvious revenue checks. The BTP officer dealing with an offender is not "one taken out of the line". They are visibly doing their job. Same for security or revenue staff. That is both reassurance for law abiders and deterrence for the tempted.

I suspect that TfL's enhancement of revenue protection will do what is required. It will be noticed, as contributers here have witnessed. That will actually reduce the problem, possibly to an affordable/ tolerable level.

I do agree though that they, and the railway, need to ensure that passengers always feel safe. The graffiti issue, and the presence of beggars on trains, both need to be controlled.

 

[Blaine]

Exactly. And LU is no better. The potential consequences may be high, but the chances of getting caught are very low, especially if prepared to front it off.

TFL are adept at catching the likes of a student who has borrowed granny’s freedom pass, but that’s only half the story.

Indeed, and the consequence for those pushing through (i.e no digital record) are so low it encourages evasion. TfL even proudly show how few people they've caught via posters at tube stations, but the numbers are laughably low. If you evade your fare on a tube journey, you have a 99.97% chance of getting away with it. A £50 fine vs a £4 ticket at those odds??

 

[Fawkes Cat]

If you evade your fare on a tube journey, you have a 99.97% chance of getting away with it.

Is this a figure out of your head, or one based on the data? If so, where can we see the data please?

I ask not just to be argumentative - but because one of the arguments that is routinely presented here is that one measure of effective enforcement is that it's frequent enough and the penalty heavy enough to make being caught uneconomic. If the fare evaded each time is £4 but there's only a 0.03% chance of being caught then it seems to me that the penalty would have to be north of £13,333 to make getting caught cost-ineffective - which perhaps militates for more enforcement before seeking an uptick in the level of fine sought.

 

[Blaine]

Is this a figure out of your head, or one based on the data? If so, where can we see the data please?

Happy to work it out properly for you!

 

[Turtle]

The only onboard ticket checks I have ever experienced have been on DLR (regularly) and Overground (not regularly but often enough to deter any silly thoughts).

In all my long life I've never had a ticket check on an Underground train.

Judging from many comments on here there seems to be the completely impractical idea that TfL should reduce fare avoidance to zero. That will never happen. They'll aim, as every transport undertaking does, to have enforcement at a level which deters the casual impulse to cheat, but doesn't cost a disproportionate sum to carry out.

That's exactly how every police force in the UK (and most of the world) deals with any form of crime. We cannot expect TfL to do different with what is essentially quite minor crimes.

I'll repeat what I've said twice already. We are hyper aware of obvious cheating, but ignore the vast majority in the background who quietly pay and don't come to our attention.

Liverpool Street LUL station doesn't just deal with City workers! It links to just about everywhere else in London, so assumptions about passenger wealth, are just that, assumptions.

I'll go back to my Walthamstow example. It's a wealthier place than it used to be, but its inhabitants still reflect a wide spectrum of incomes, and I doubt that there are many in the upper decile of incomes. The ones I saw on Friday reflected that and they easily outnumbered by 30 to 1 or more, the obvious fare dodgers. London is a huge city with literally millions of people daily using TfL services. It would be odd if we didn't spot some abusers within that horde.

Lastly, the purists on here don't seem to appreciate the deterrent effect of obvious revenue checks. The BTP officer dealing with an offender is not "one taken out of the line". They are visibly doing their job. Same for security or revenue staff. That is both reassurance for law abiders and deterrence for the tempted.

I suspect that TfL's enhancement of revenue protection will do what is required. It will be noticed, as contributers here have witnessed. That will actually reduce the problem, possibly to an affordable/ tolerable level.

I do agree though that they, and the railway, need to ensure that passengers always feel safe. The graffiti issue, and the presence of beggars on trains, both need to be controlled.

I used London Underground from about 1952 to 2012 approximately and only once had my ticket checked on a train.

 

[Fawkes Cat]

Happy to work it out properly for you!

Please do.

 

[Blaine]

Thanks for the inspiration to pass the time on a Christmas train journey... The numbers bounce around a little depending on if you count DLR as well as tube, and the passenger figures I had were older, though the order of magnitude is clear. But let's look at the very latest...

Based on https://content.tfl.gov.uk/travel-i...mates-of-total-travel-and-mode-shares-acc.pdf there's 2.6m tube/DLR journeys a day in 2024.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-0335-2526 says fare evasion is 4.7% on the tube, 4.8% on the DLR - so 123,500 journeys scammed a day assuming a figure between the two.

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transp.../foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-2150-2526 has 1292 people caught on the tube / DLR from 16 Aug - 9 Sep, 24 days in total, so 54 people a day.

54 as a percentage of 123,500 is approximately 0.0437%.

So current percentage of getting away with it on a single journey is 99.96%, you could just push through barriers on a daily commute for about 4.5 years before having a 50% chance of being caught - and end up paying £50 rather than £8k's worth of travelcards.

 

[Coolzac]

I agree. Plenty of people just jump or force the gates and get confrontational if a member of staff/revenue react.

These sort of people will only react to enforcement by OVERWHELMING force. Threatening to take them to court or collecting their details is not going deter them.

---

On buses I see people just walking straight on. Sometimes at night when coming home from Croydon I feel like I might be the only one with a ticket/Oyster. This results in fewer busses because the patronage is not registered. One I notice a lot more recently is young people not presenting an Oyster - either they do not understand the need to show an Oyster card even if free OR they have become accustomed to free travel and now they are older the thought of paying is hard to accept.

Is free travel for under elevens in London actually creating a problem for the future ?.

For buses perhaps the only thing a bus driver can do is refuse to move but that could still be stressful.

I very rarely have trouble with staff/security *. But some people I know do seem to be more likely to - I think it just depends how you come across and how you deal with a confrontation.

*= My worst as an adult was decades ago platform staff trying to get me off Kings Cross. I asked why, trainspotting not allowed they said. They then went straight to threatening to call the police - I told them to go ahead. Nothing happened.

As a teenager I got thrown of Tamworth often enough and Stafford once. No trainspotters allowed. I was less confident in those days !.

+

Beggars on Thameslink use un-gated stations to the North of London and/or un-gated stations to the South to gain access to the trains. I also notice many get off at London Bridge or Blackfriars at night to ply their trade Southbound to East Croydon then change again to go back North on the next train and so on.

---

The fact is that the fare dodgers that are not caught without force are the ones that need dealing with the most perhaps. It is not just about lost revenue. It risks getting to the stage where public transport seems unwelcoming - then fare paying passengers will not use public transport.

An example is when I tried to persuade my family to use public transport to get to a party in Harrow from Croydon.
Two over 60s with free travel, one under 11 with free travel and two adults that would have to pay. Effectively all four adults pay really as we pay taxes, and the child will pay taxes one day.

Refused to go by train and opted for the car instead despite the driver inclined to drink. The reason was not wanting to rub shoulders with undesirables. Granddaughter had recently experienced a very late night Thameslink with me after a bad delay getting back to London from the North. So many undesirables (beggars and ranting oddities) she felt scared - really wanted to get off at Blackfriars which I knew was not a good idea. So she refused to go to the party by train.

I doubt very much the scrotes that graffiti trains on the inside have considered buying a ticket. My granddaughter is scared to use a tagged loo. Why should she suffer - make them suffer.

If nothing is done about feral behaviour including ticket less travelers forcing themselves on we will end up with public transport not being for law abiding citizens. Then the law abiding citizens will ask why they should pay for others.

Such a good point. You'll always get this behaviour but I feel like very little effort is made to curb it, which means that more and more people will either a) also engage in this behaviour or b) not use public transport as they feel unsafe.