Plain-clothes police target repeat fare dodgers

Plain-clothes police officers are being deployed on London's transport network to catch people who repeatedly push through ticket barriers without paying.

Transport for London (TfL) said 467 people were stopped and 24 arrested in the first month of Operation Vector, a joint operation with British Transport Police (BTP).

Officers also issued 156 penalty fares and reported 175 people for possible prosecution.

TfL's fare evasion rate remains at 3.5%, the same level seen in 2024-25, against a target of 1.5% by 2030-31. TfL said it would "not tolerate" fare evasion, which the transport body estimates costs it about £190m a year.

Under the pilot, TfL's revenue and enforcement teams deal with fare evasion, while BTP officers check people's records and look for wider offences, including drugs, weapons and sexual offences.

Officers are placed at different points around each station, including beyond the barriers, so people who force their way through can be tracked and stopped.

Insp Jack Butterwick from the BTP said officers watched for "body language", such as people slowing down and hesitating as they approached the gate.

"So there are those obvious body cues if you like as well, and then there's the obvious ones that people sort of push through the barriers as well, which is great and give a word."

Ch Insp Daniel Rushall, also from the BTP, said some people who evaded fares were linked to more serious crime, and the first month had led to weapons and drugs being seized.

Siwan Hayward, TfL's director of security, policing and enforcement, said gate pushing created "an intimidating atmosphere for our staff and customers".

"We know from the start of this operation that the kind of people who are involved in pushing through our gates and pushing after people are also wanted for a whole range of different offences, you know carrying knives, carrying weapons, involved in robbery, involved in sexual offences on our network."

TfL has not said how many of the arrests related to fare evasion.

Seb Dance, the deputy mayor for transport, said: "We have a clear message for the small but persistent group of people that aren't paying the correct fare: we will not tolerate it, and you will be held to account."

Hayward added: "The officers are trained in techniques called behavioural detection and what that means is that it does require challenging some of your assumptions about who's a likely person to push through.

"It's not all teenagers. So what's interesting about how people behave, not how they look. it's just aspects of their behaviour as they approach the [gate], as they look out, that will be the giveaway for our trained officers.

"The way people approach the gate, the way people look at the gate, the way people look around, the way people pick someone who they're going to push behind them."

TfL has previously said fare evasion and payment disputes were behind about half of incidents of violence and aggression towards its staff.

Since April this year, its enforcement teams have issued more than 33,000 penalty fares and reported more than 11,000 people for possible prosecution, including more than 2,400 for barrier misuse.

The pilot is part of a fare evasion strategy launched in April 2025, which includes an expanded team of investigators targeting repeat offenders.

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