Plain-clothes BTP officers and TfL inspectors stopped 467 people and made 24 arrests in a month of Operation Vector. What it means on Ealing's Tube and trains.

Passengers pushing through the ticket barriers at Ealing’s Tube and Elizabeth line stations may now be watched by officers they cannot pick out. Transport for London (TfL) and the British Transport Police (BTP) have run a new operation against repeat fare dodgers for a month, and today published the first figures.

Operation Vector puts plain-clothes BTP officers alongside TfL’s Revenue Control teams and its uniformed Transport Support Enforcement staff. Officers are deployed beyond the gateline and talk to each other to track and stop people who travel without paying, TfL said.

In the month since it launched, the operation has led to:

  • 467 people stopped
  • 156 penalty fares issued
  • 175 people reported for possible prosecution
  • 24 arrests by BTP, for fare evasion and other offences

TfL has not said which stations the officers have worked at, and the release names none in Ealing. It says the point is uncertainty: by varying “where and when enforcement activity is taking place”, it wants people to stop assuming they can get through the barriers for free.

Who it is aimed at

TfL describes the targets as “persistent fare evaders who routinely push through ticket barriers”. Seb Dance, Deputy Mayor of London for Transport, said:

“Fare evasion is a criminal offence and prevents essential funds being reinvested to improve our transport network. We have a clear message for the small but persistent group of people that aren’t paying the correct fare: we will not tolerate it, and you will be held to account.”

Siwan Hayward, TfL’s Director of Security, Policing and Enforcement, said gate pushing made stations unpleasant for staff and passengers:

“The vast majority of our customers pay the correct fare, and it is only right that those who deliberately avoid paying are identified and held to account. Fare evasion and gate pushing creates an intimidating atmosphere for our staff and customers, and is something we are determined to tackle.”

She added that bringing the three teams together was “making it harder for repeat offenders to evade detection”.

BTP says the operation is also catching people wanted for more serious offences. Chief Inspector Daniel Rushall said:

“We know there are several reasons why people choose to fare evade and one of those is due to their links to more serious criminality. In its first month, this operation has already provided us with valuable opportunities to identify and apprehend criminals and high harm offenders using London’s transport network, including the seizure of weapons and drugs.”

“You may not realise we are there because of the nature in which we conduct some of these operations, but we are determined to hunt out criminals blighting our network.”

TfL and BTP have not said how many of the 24 arrests were for fare evasion and how many for other offences.

The wider numbers

Operation Vector sits on top of TfL’s routine checks at gatelines, on trains and buses and inside stations, which it says focus on major hubs. Since April 2026, across the whole network, TfL says it has:

  • issued more than 33,000 penalty fares
  • reported more than 11,000 people for prosecution consideration
  • reported more than 2,400 people for barrier misuse

TfL’s fare evasion strategy, launched in April 2025, aims to bring the evasion rate down to 1.5 per cent or less by 2030/31, which TfL describes as halving it. The money lost is income that would otherwise go back into the network, TfL said.

TfL’s release is on the TfL newsroom.