What Sadiq Khan can learn from the city that crushed fare evasion

Telegraph

16-06-2025

When Laura first moved to Washington three years ago, she thought the bus was a complimentary service paid for by the city.
'I assumed it was free when I took it the first couple of times because nobody was paying,' says the researcher. 'Everyone just walked straight on.'
Across the world, fare evasion on public transport has exploded in the wake of the pandemic. It has left public transport companies reeling from hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenues.
Now, Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) – which manages the US capital's bus and subway systems – is at the forefront of a crackdown. It has had huge success in tackling fare evasion on its Metrorail network, and is now targeting the buses.
Randy Clarke, the WMATA general manager, says the network has cut subway fare-dodging by as much as 85pc from its peak.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic, Transport for London (TfL) haemorrhages £130m to fare dodgers. Sir Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, would do well to take note of Clarke's tactics. Almost one in 20 Tube passengers didn't pay last year.
Fare dodging has become a political flashpoint in London. Last month, Robert Jenrick, the shadow justice secretary, filmed himself confronting fare dodgers pushing through the barriers at Stratford station in east London.
He posted the video on X with the message: 'Sadiq Khan is driving a proud city into the ground. Lawbreaking is out of control. He's not acting. So, I did.'
But what can Sir Sadiq learn from Washington?
Across all US transport networks, the rate of fare evasion has nearly quadrupled since the pandemic. In 2018, it was 2pc. Last year, it was 7pc – according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).
But 7pc sounds quaint on large city networks. Clarke may have had success on Washington's subway network but WMATA data last autumn showed around 70pc of riders on DC buses were travelling without paying.
Paul Skoutelas, APTA's president, blames a psychological shift during lockdown. Many transport systems stopped charging fares to reduce contact between people, or to boost passenger numbers.
'People are thinking, 'We didn't pay then, do we really need to pay now?'' says Skoutelas.
In Washington, Metrobus fares were waived between March 2020 and January 2021. For many riders, the habit stuck. By 2022, WMATA was losing $40m (£29.5m) a year in revenues to fare evaders across Metrorail and Metrobus.
Benjamin Lynn, of the Amalgamated Transit Union (AMT), says of the rail network: 'You'd see people climb over the fare gates on a daily basis.'
Three steps to tackle fare evasions
When Clarke joined WMATA as general manager in the summer of 2022, he launched a three-pronged attack to tackle fare evasion on DC's Metrorail network.
First, he tightened the rules to introduce new penalties for failing to pay. Secondly, he stepped up police patrols to catch offenders. And thirdly, and most crucially, WMATA introduced new gates that are much harder to skip through.
At the end of 2018, Washington had decriminalised fare evasion, meaning perpetrators only faced fines. Then during the pandemic, it largely stopped policing the policy. Fare evasion enforcements plunged from more than 15,000 in 2017 to just 297 in 2021.
WMATA launched a new system of penalties shortly after Clarke joined in 2022, with $50 civil fines for fare evasion in Washington. In the states of Virginia and Maryland, which are also part of the transport network, fare evasion is a criminal offence with a fine of up to $100.
But officers had limited means to impose these fines until District of Columbia council officials passed the Secure DC Bill in March 2024, which handed police greater powers to force offenders to provide their correct names and addresses. Anyone failing to comply can face an additional $100 fine.
At the same time, Clarke increased police patrols by 70pc. Between 2023 and 2024, the number of citations and summonses issued by the Metro Transit Police surged by 136pc to hit nearly 16,000 – the highest total on record in at least a decade. In the first four months of 2025, citations were up by a further 45pc.
WMATA also began rolling out new fare gates, with installations completed across all 98 stations last year. The old gates were only 28 inches high and consisted of small retracting fan-shaped gates. They were easy to push through, crawl under or climb over. The new gates are almost twice the height (55 inches) and consist of L-shaped polycarbonate door-panels with robust, motorised hinges and only a 10-inch gap underneath.
Clarke's personal leadership style has also helped. One of his first steps after becoming general manager was to get remote workers back into the office.
'A lot of people didn't love that at the time,' he told the Statecraft politics podcast this month. However, he said the shift in policy helped get results. 'I think that is actually one of the reasons we produced so much.'
The impact has been undeniable. The network has clawed back tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and in two years the crime rate across WMATA has fallen by 65pc to a seven-year low.
'Not everyone who fare-evades commits crimes, but almost universally, everyone who commits serious crimes fare-evades,' Clarke told Statecraft. 'Not many people are going to tap in and then do armed robbery.'
The Metrobus, however, is still something of a Wild West. This is Clarke's new frontier.
At the end of last year, WMATA launched a new effort with transit police, plain-clothes officers and video monitoring. Digital signs on the front of Metrobuses now say 'fare required'.
'You would think, 'Geez, that's very simple.' But I think it needs to be said,' says Skoutelas.
WMATA is at the aggressive forefront of a national effort to claw back lost revenues. City networks including New York, San Francisco and Seattle have all made major inroads on fare evasion with similar tactics.
In London, TfL is on a campaign too, with a target to cut fare evasion from 3.4pc – or 4.7pc on the Tube – to 1.5pc by 2030.
Sir Sadiq has taken similar efforts to tighten the rules, increasing fines for fare evasion from £80 to £100 in March last year. In April, TfL announced it was expanding its team of dedicated investigators to crack down on prolific repeat offenders.
But there has so far been no word on improving fare gates. In response to a Freedom of Information request on the topic in March this year, TfL said: 'There are currently no plans to replace the ticket barriers.' It seems Sir Sadiq is missing a vital trick.
Ultimately, the key to fixing the problem is psychological, Clarke believes.
'There is some truth to a larger societal idea. People want to see other people follow rules, and the more that people follow rules, the more people watching them follow rules,' he told Statecraft. 'There's a societal group-think at play.'