Further fares freezes must not push TfL finances into the abyss

Transport for London (TfL) is facing unprecedented financial pressures and is running a deficit of £1 billion for 2018/19.

TfL estimates that the Mayor’s current fares freeze will cost around £640 million over the four-year Mayoral term. Delays to the opening of Crossrail have compounded TfL’s problems.

The London Assembly Budget and Performance Committee releases a report today into TfL’s finances and makes recommendations to help turn the organisation’s fortunes around including:

• TfL needs to publish how much a second fares freeze would cost as soon as possible.
• The Government should draw up plans to devolve Vehicle Excise Duty revenue to London.
• TfL should commission and publish market research into new forms of advertising on its network, with proposals put out for public consultation.

Gareth Bacon AM, Chairman of the Budget and Performance Committee, said:

“TfL clearly has some way to go to become a financially sustainable public body. The first-term partial fares freeze will end up costing TfL at least £640 million; a second-term freeze could be substantially more, and it is simply not sustainable if TfL is to claw its way out of a perilous financial situation.

“Freezing fares is a political decision that the Mayor can take but Londoners deserves to know exactly how much it will cost.

“The public rightly demand value for money and good transport services but the organisation running most of the services in London cannot be left out in the cold through unsustainable policies.

“TfL needs to have a period of calm in which they make sensible, sure-footed and long sighted financial decisions as part of a concrete plan to get out of the financial doldrums it has found itself in.”