London Underground Ticketing - Penalty Fares and Fare Evasion

Penalty Fares and Fare Evasion

In addition to the automatic and staffed ticket gates at stations, the Underground is sometimes patrolled by the uniformed staff who mainly stay at the ticket barriers, and very occasionally by plain-clothes ticket inspectors equipped with hand-held Oyster card readers. Passengers travelling without a ticket valid for their entire journey are sometimes required to pay a £50 penalty fare or face prosecution for fare evasion. Oyster pre-pay users who have failed to 'touch in' at the start of their journey are also considered to be travelling without a valid ticket.

Touts at stations can often be seen attempting to resell used Day Travelcards that they have been given by passengers who no longer need them. Transport for London strongly discourage this, officially stating that Travelcards are 'non-transferable' and thus invalid if resold. Underground staff and inspectors have the authority to confiscate tickets that they know to have been resold and to require a passenger using such a ticket to pay a penalty fare, although this is rare in practice since proving a ticket has been resold can be a difficult and time-consuming process.

In an attempt to reduce the numbers of Travelcards being used by more than one person, an experiment took place at Brixton station in 2002. A box was provided at the station exit into which passengers were encouraged to deposit Travelcards that were no longer required, and for each ticket deposited London Underground made a small donation to local charities for the homeless.