How to catch a fare dodger: TfL's war on ticket evaders as workers launch sting operations in pursuit of brazen passengers who owe thousands
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A quick skip through the gate behind someone else; forcing the barriers open with a brutal shove; skipping through open gangways at the end of the day without tapping your card; or even buying a cheeky ticket that covers only a fraction of your journey.
Fare evasion is a nigh-on endless occurrence on London's transport network, costing Transport for London some £130million each year - or more than £4 every single second.
But with the help of technology, a growing team of professional investigators and sheer determination, the transport body is fighting back - and putting fare evaders firmly in their place.
TfL has some 500 uniformed 'revenue control officers' - alongside an unspecified number of plainclothes inspectors - across the entire network, covering Underground, Overground, buses, DLR, Trams and the Elizabeth Line.
They all have the power to demand proof from passengers that they have a valid ticket, Oyster card or bank card.
But in the background, TfL also employs a squadron of professional investigators who work in the background to identify those who slip through the net.
They build up comprehensive pictures of where fare dodgers travel and when - even down to how many times a week - and feed the intelligence to officers on the ground who can be ready to catch them in the act.
A new Channel 5 series has been lifting the lid on how the capital catches fare dodgers - with ticket inspectors granting rare access to all of the tricks they use to not only identify non-paying passengers, but how they catch them in the act.
Are YOU a fare dodger? Email anonymously: jon.brady@mailonline.co.uk
Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law has followed investigators working for both TfL and South Western Railway (SWR) as they crack down on those unwilling to pay their way for transport.
And where there are fare evasions on a massive scale - as identified by CCTV, human intelligence and ITAP, TfL's all-seeing fare evasion detection system - there are fare inspectors ready to take them to ask.
Across episodes shown to date - with more to come - ticket dodgers have been tracked as owing anywhere up to five figures in unpaid fares dating back months or even years.
The series has even exposed some of the lesser known tricks that fraudulent travellers have used in order to pay either nothing, or as little as possible.
Some were using bank cards with tiny balances to tap in, knowing they couldn't pay the fare, or even buying tickets covering the last stop on their journeys despite travelling from further out.
But little gets past the capital's elite teams of revenue officers, who have brought fare evasion down from 3.8 per cent to 3.4 in the space of a single year - a fraction of the 13 per cent rate on New York's subways.
Sometimes the stings don't pay off - as in one episode set to be broadcast Monday June 2, where TfL revenue officers, on good intelligence, wait at Forest Green station on the Elizabeth Line to catch a man who regularly passes through without paying.
Identified in CCTV by his black and white letterman jacket, the plainclothes inspectors watch and wait, confident he will appear - but find themselves plagued by false alarms.
'You've just got to look for the little nuances about someone,' one of the inspectors says.
'You get a passion for it and you just want to catch them. I think they think it's a victimless crime, to be fair.'
They ultimately leave empty handed - but remain upbeat he will appear.
The other inspector says: 'You can't let that he's not turning up, when he usually turns up, get to you.
'The habits in which people feel like they can get away with it over and over again is almost their demise because they're going to do it again and again and again and think they can get away with it.'
As they leave the station, he chirps: 'There's always next time.'
For TfL's army of enforcement officers, that 'next time' arrives an average of once a day across the city, with 360 evaders prosecuted last year.
And the Channel 5 series has shown in satisfying detail what happens when they finally get their comeuppance.
At Surrey Quays - an Overground station on the Windrush line - TfL investigators stopped a man who had been using a bank card with no balance to tap in and out.
TfL systems will log that a bank card is valid when it is used to tap in, but cannot verify whether it has any balance until the end of the business day when total fares are calculated and payment is taken.
So while the card had no balance, the gates would recognise the card as valid and open - but couldn't take any money.
In the first episode of the series, plainclothes inspectors identifiable only by their body-worn cameras as being on official business stop the man as he taps out at Surrey Quays with the dodgy card.
He tries to tell inspectors: 'It's not mine - I found it.' The inspectors, using data from their systems, determined that he had been using the card almost daily for a year.
After an interview, he signs a document admitting he had evaded fares on more than 500 journeys, totalling £3,573, or around £7 at a time.
Fare evaders will use every trick in the book to avoid paying their way - even exploiting their relatives' benefits for their own personal gain.
An earlier episode of the series shows a trio of TfL investigators called Tracey, Sarah and Dan cornering a man who had abused his female relative's Freedom Pass more than 200 times.
The pass grants free travel across the network to to Londoners over the age of 66, and to those with certain disabilities or who are told by the DVLA they cannot drive.
But the fare dodger was neither of those - and was brought down with the ITAP system, which linked the card to the journeys he was taking on a regular basis to build up a clear picture of his movements.
Tracey, Sarah and Dan were then primed to catch him in the act at Preston Road station on the Metropolitan Line - even as he tried to shove past one of the inspectors and denied he had the pass as he tucked it into his pocket.
The man, who said he had travelled from Moorgate, told the investigators: 'Which pass? I don't have any pass? Only my card.'
An investigator then told him: 'Come on, stop messing around, we've had this already.' The man says: 'I'm not messing.'
Another added: 'We know you have it because when you came up, I stopped you and I approached you, and you had a yellow wallet on it.'
The third investigator then says: 'OK, game's up, show the pass, we know who it belongs to. We've done an investigation on you, we know you've got the pass on you.'
TfL officers then tell him his failure to cooperate would lead to the case being passed to the British Transport Police as fraud.
The case was ultimately passed to prosecutors to claw back more than £1,000 of unpaid fares.
On the Transport for London network, the ITAP (Irregular Travel Analysis Platform) system sits at the heart of all fare evasion probes.
Exactly how it works is a secret, kept under wraps by TfL on the basis that revealing its workings could encourage fare evasion.
But what we do know is that it analyses the patterns of fare dodging to build up comprehensive pictures of where and when suspects are travelling.
It tracks Oyster and contactless payment cards - processed as anonymous tokens to safeguard financial information - as well as 'gateline data', a phrase that suggests it can detect when people are tailgating through larger gates that stay open longer.
Alongside other events such as gates being forced open, ITAP can help investigators build a comprehensive picture of when fraudsters travel - so they can be ready to pounce at the right time.
The system is working: as well as bringing down total fare evasion, TfL has clawed back £400,000 of unpaid fares in the last year alone after taking 360 persistent offenders to court.
And there are more advancements to come. Last year, MailOnline reported on how TfL ran a 'smart station' trial at Willesden Green that saw its CCTV feeds examined by artificial intelligence (AI) software to spot fare evaders.
The system was trained to spot fare dodgers who pushed or tailgated through ticket barriers - and would flag them to a human operator who could then build up a picture of their movements to pass to enforcement officers.
It could also spot other signs of trouble faster than a human being, trained to spot knives, people on the tracks, or even passengers who were sitting at the platform for an inordinate amount of time.
These safety checks were being trialled at Custom House station in January this year. TfL has not said whether AI is yet being used to spot fare evasion on a wider basis following the Willesden Green trial.
Channel 5's Fare Dodgers, now in its second series, has also been following inspectors tackling fare evasion on the South Western Railway (SWR) network, which operates from the London Waterloo terminus.
Like TfL, it appears to be using data to spot when passengers aren't paying - but its work is complicated by the fact that passengers will use a combination of paper tickets, e-tickets, season passes and Oyster and contactless tap-ons to travel.
Nevertheless, the series shows how investigators always get their man (or woman) - sometimes netting huge wins.
One tricky customer at London Waterloo was snared engaging in 'short faring' - after travelling from far outside the capital but only buying tickets at Vauxhall, the last stop before the end of the line.
He had also been buying 'doughnut tickets' - short tickets covering the first and last stations of his journey, leaving a 'hole' in the middle for which he hadn't paid. Nevertheless, he was able to pass through the barriers.
As if his evasion wasn't brazen enough, he had been using a 16-17 Saver Railcard to take 50 per cent off the price.
SWR launched an eight-week probe to establish his movements and apprehended him exactly where they expected him to be, slapping him with £19,500 of unpaid fares - even as he tried to explain away his crime.
Asked where he travelled from the man said in remarks censored by the broadcaster: 'Er, from (redacted) today, well (redacted) this morning, sorry.'
The investigator then said: 'Why do you have a Vauxhall to Waterloo ticket?'
The man responded: 'Er, just because I didn't manage to get one in time, so just one to get through the barrier.'
Around 4.5 per cent of SWR journeys are made without a valid ticket, and unpaid fares cost the operator around £40million a year. Investigators recovered £3.4million in 2024.
TfL station staff are told under no circumstances to put themselves at risk when they see fare evasion, instead advised to build up a log of incidents to pass to professional enforcers.
But some, including shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick, have tried taking the law into their own hands, as he filmed a video showing him confronting fare dodgers. One of the alleged fare dodgers told him to 'f*** off'.
Mr Jenrick was criticised for the 'vigilante' stunt, which transport union the TSSA labelled 'inappropriate' and 'potentially dangerous for passengers, staff and the individual involved'.
'Fare evasion is a serious issue, but it must be tackled with professional, trained enforcement, not MPs trying to score points or social media clout on their daily commute,' it said.
TfL has also confirmed Mr Jenrick did not have permission to film the video, which was shot at Stratford Station.
Public opinion suggests that those who dodge rail fares aren't currying favour with their fellow travellers.
A recent YouGov poll found that 76 per cent of Brits say fare dodgers are 'exploiting the system, and it's not fair to paying passengers'.
Thinking of slinking under a ticket barrier? With enforcement teams, reams of data and even the public against you, it would be best to think again.
- 'Fare Dodgers: At War with the Law' is on Channel 5 on Monday evenings at 9pm.
