A busy week for Robert Jenrick, who has been challenging fare evaders on trains and the Tube, asking people why they appeared to have neglected to pay for their journey. I’m not surprised that the video clip of him confronting people who appeared to have forced their way through ticket barriers has been viewed almost 12 million times on X/Twitter. With his stunt – “You’re on camera, mate, you’re bang to rights” – he’s hit a nerve.
He seemed to be in Stratford, east London, on the same day as I was; me visiting the V&A’s new Storehouse museum, the shadow secretary of state for justice to discover why fare dodging is costing Transport for London £130m a year.
If I’d known he was going to be going full vigilante, I’d have combined my visit to London’s newest cultural jewel with a chance to join him in collaring the barrier-hoppers to ask why they were happy contributing to the recent 4.6 per cent rise in Tube fares. Because, like Jenrick, I don’t mind calling out bad behaviour when I see it.
On too many journeys on public transport, I see people – OK, men, it’s always men – evading fares, barging through the barriers, or telling the bus driver that they don’t have any money and are “only going two stops”. When they’re told to get off and they grudgingly open their Apple Pay, it feels like a minor victory for the whole of society.
Last year, I was exiting the Tube at Victoria and felt someone press up behind me as I passed through the gate. They’d clearly done this so they didn’t have to pay, and as we both cleared the gate, I asked them why they thought they were above paying for a ticket. The middle-aged man just said, “Don’t want to”, and walked off. When I told the gate staff what had happened, they said they weren’t allowed to take any action and to leave any cases like this to revenue enforcement staff. But “not my problem” seems to be the sum of it.
Of course, I understand the risk of taking on people like this – in Jenrick’s video, one evader claimed to be carrying a knife. But why do other passengers never think to politely address the people who are making their journeys more expensive?
I’ve talked to people on buses who’ve evaded fares and reminded them that all the other passengers had paid, so why should they get a free ride? The response is either nothing or an expletive.
Frankly, I’m fed up with the sense of entitlement as well as the lack of action from officialdom. But I’m also furious that it falls to a 59-year-old woman to take on men who are breaking the law.
I know I’m not the only woman who does this. I’m also not averse to asking people, “Do they mind not listening to that without headphones?”. But please don’t call us “Karens”.
We do it not to make people’s lives a misery or for a sense of moral superiority, but because these fare evaders don’t seem to face much of a deterrent on any level. In the incidents I’ve witnessed on the railways, there isn’t even a verbal rebuke from staff when passengers push through the gates, just a shrugging of the shoulders.
Each train on the new Elizabeth Line, which cost almost £20bn to build, can carry 1,500 passengers – more in the rush hour crush, or after delays to the inexplicably unreliable service. By my calculations, that means, on average, eight people in your carriage won’t have paid.
Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, says TfL is increasing its teams of investigators and investing in new technology to stamp out fraud: the wide-access gates at every station, which open more slowly and so are a prime target for tail-gaters, could be made more difficult to barge through. Live facial recognition cameras powered by artificial intelligence would revolutionise the ability to detect and catch criminals.
All of this can’t come soon enough. On my Tube journey home from Stratford, I spotted half a dozen TfL revenue officers around an exit gate checking to see who had paid and questioning those who hadn’t. I was pleased to see this; it was safety in numbers for the team, but also a very visible sign that you can’t just push your way through because you don’t fancy paying.
Perhaps if there were a few more subtle and consistent reminders on public transport, not just the occasional swarm of blue-uniformed officers, it could make evaders think twice. But at the moment, it’s just middle-aged women and the odd shadow secretary of state.
