TfL ticket prices: One in three Londoners ‘put off using public transport by cost’, says survey

More than a third of Londoners think that public transport in the capital is so expensive it puts them off using it, according to a new survey.

Hitachi Rail found that 37% of respondents thought London’s public transport to be prohibitively expensive - the highest proportion in the eight cities surveyed, which included Paris, Hong Kong and Toronto.

Despite the finding, the company said Londoners were more likely to use public transport to commute, compared to inhabitants of the other metropolises, with the UK capital being the only one surveyed where the majority did not use a car to get to work.

Londoners also used buses more frequently than any of the other seven cities, with almost half using these services on their commute, followed by 35% saying they travel by train to work and 20% using the Tube.

The survey by Hitachi Rail was conducted in August 2022, so it is possible that the cost of living crisis in the UK led to such a higher number of people expressing dissatisfaction at the cost of using TfL services.

A spokesperson for mayor of London Sadiq Khan said: “Since 2016, the mayor has made public transport in London more affordable for millions of Londoners, freezing TfL fares for five years and introducing the Hopper bus fare.”

They added: “But his hands have been tied since the pandemic due to the strict conditions set by the government in the recent emergency funding agreement for TfL, leaving no viable alternative but to raise fares in London by the same amount as national rail fares.”

A single Tube journey between Zones 1&2 currently costs £2.60 off peak and £3.20 at peak times. An adult bus fare costs £1.60 with the total charged in a day capped at £4.95.