200% rise in money lost to fare evasion on the Tube, says Labour

The amount of money lost through fare evasion on London Underground has increased by 200% in the last five years, according to a study.

Labour said its research showed that 4.5p is lost to fare evasion for every passenger journey on the Tube.

Val Shawcross, Labour's transport spokeswoman on the London Assembly, said mayor Boris Johnson should be doing more to claw back the money.

"With Transport for London having to watch every penny, we need to see a real clampdown on fare evasion."

Steve Burton, TfL's director of enforcement, said: "Fare evasion across our network has continued to go down every year, against rising passenger numbers, and on London Underground represents less than 1% of all passenger journeys.

"Our revenue control Inspectors work in partnership with our policing partners to not only check tickets on trains and at stations, but also to carry out intelligence and data-led operations to stamp out fare evasion on our network."

Mick Cash, leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport union, said: "The figures are exactly in line with RMT warnings that axing ticket offices and station staff would be a false economy and would encourage fare evasion.

"Our warnings were ignored and the result is that TfL are taking a huge financial hit on top of the massive budget cuts that threaten to decimate jobs and services."

TfL said the figures did not take into account the revenue recouped through penalty fares and maximum fare charges, which are reinvested into running transport services.