On-the-spot Tube fines raise pounds 5,000

LONDON Underground claimed pounds 5,000 from people travelling on the Tube without tickets yesterday, the first working day since penalty fares began on Sunday, writes Marianne Macdonald.

Under the new rules anyone caught without a valid ticket must pay an on-the-spot pounds 10 fine in cash or by cheque or credit card. Passengers will be let off only if they can prove the ticket booth at the station where they started their journey was closed and its ticket machines not working.

About 500 people were expected to have been fined by just after midnight, when the Tubes stop running. It will bring the total number of people fined since Sunday to about 1,000, representing an extra pounds 10,000 income that would previously have lost.

London Underground claims it is losing a total of pounds 30m a year to fare dodgers and expects to exact fines from up to half a million people in the first year of the scheme, representing up to pounds 5m extra revenue. Officials say that this will be used to improve trains and stations.