Spare a thought for Sir Sadiq Khan, currently enduring a barrage of criticism over London’s descent into lawlessness. As Commissioner for Policing and Crime in London, he is directly responsible. But he is also Chair of Transport for London, an organisation attracting a comparable level of criticism.

First out of the block was Robert Jenrick, confronting fare evaders on the tube on social media videos that went viral. He was soon followed by journalist Tom Harwood joining Looking For Growth activists removing graffiti from the interior of trains on the Bakerloo line.

These are two issues that are very salient for fare-paying commuters and on which TfL is clearly failing to act. But Sir Sadiq is on the case.

When the issue came up at a recent TfL Board meeting in City Hall, he deferred to Andy Lord, Commissioner of TfL who asked his fellow board members: “Who are the graffiti artists, what communities, what groups, and is there more we can do to engage with them? What more can we do with our education programmes?”

In the spirit of education, he went on to suggest museum visits for the “artists” in question. When quizzed further at last month’s Plenary Meeting of the London Assembly, Lord offered some feedback for the volunteer graffiti removers who seem determined to remove some of this artwork from trains: “Firstly,” he said, “we would ask anybody not to take this matter into their own hands.” He went on: “We also have evidence of people creating graffiti and then removing it, so that’s being investigated by the relevant authorities.”

As if there were not already enough graffiti on the Bakerloo Line, he appeared to be accusing the volunteers of creating their own for the purposes of then ostentatiously removing it.

On fare evasion, the situation is if anything worse. TfL has a large rail network encompassing the tube, the Overground, the Docklands Light Railway and the Elizabeth Line.

Its own records show 1.7 billion journeys being made across 2023/24 with a fare evasion rate of 3.8%. I am very sceptical that the evasion rate is as low as that but taking it at face value, that figure suggests 63.5 million journeys that are not paid for with a revenue loss of £130 million.

As to how many evaders are caught and convicted, a Freedom of Information request has yielded the fact of just 13,000 convictions. This suggests a conviction rate of 0.02%.

As any frequent traveller on TfL’s rail network will tell you, fare evasion has become decriminalised with evaders brazenly tailgating or forcing their way through barriers with impunity. The London Underground has become a sort of honesty box.

The Mayor will tell you that he has over two hundred “enforcement officers” addressing the problem. But in answers to written questions that I have put to him, it is clear that these enforcement officers are trained to enforce only as a last resort.

They are drilled in the “Four Es”: “Engage, Educate, Encourage and.. Enforce.” I am intrigued by this approach and have written to the Mayor to get sight of the training material, something he has declined to provide.

This is the same principle that also appears to be at work for the graffiti “artists” whom Andy Lord would also like to engage and educate. The one task that these “non-enforcement” officers fail to do is take action on fare evasion.

If you do see them at your tube station, and if your experience is anything like mine, they will most likely be standing around chatting, hands tucked into their stab vests, doing nothing.

Sadiq Khan’s transport failures are not solely to do with the train network. TfL is also responsible for London’s taxi and private hire services. Private hire drivers need to be licensed by TfL to make a living but the backlog in licence issuing is now so chronic that many drivers are facing real hardship, something highlighted last month at Mayor’s Question Time by my fellow Assembly Member Gareth Roberts.

At the most recent TfL Board Meeting, two despairing drivers were removed from City Hall’s public gallery after pleading for help on this issue. Andy Lord’s response was to observe that it was tough clearing the backlog when more licences keep hitting their renewal date.

“We need to get on top of it,” he said in an admission that reassured nobody. Why did the backlog happen? TfL points to a February update in licence processing software coupled with the “cyber incident” that crippled all of TfL’s IT systems in September of last year.

A number of services were impacted: commuters could not access their online accounts for Oyster payments, nor could they submit claims for refunds for late journeys; the Dial-a-Ride service for the disabled was briefly suspended.

TfL initially announced that no customer data was affected but had to row back on this when it emerged that personal information – including names, contact details and in some cases bank account data – for around five thousand commuters had been accessed.

Because TfL make such a success of running London’s transport system, the Greater London Authority has them run HR and IT for everybody at City Hall and I can speak from personal experience when I say that these functions ground to a halt for six months with every request from hiring a new team member or getting a laptop issued being met with a weary negative which always ended with the words: “because of the cyber incident”.

It turned out that the perpetrator that brought TfL to its knees at a cost to Londoners of over £30 million was a lone 17 year-old boy, since arrested and bailed. Did the Mayor or Andy Lord fire anyone for this lamentable failure in IT security? Far from it.

In what has become a pattern for Lord’s leadership style, he praised his team, thanking the many employees that “really pulled together” to deal with it.

The fact is, Sadiq Khan’s TfL is a country club in which more than 2,200 staff earn more than £100,000 a year as was recently revealed in the most recent accounts. 78 employees earn in excess of £170,000 and are therefore taking home more than the Prime Minister.

Transport for London is not working – at least not for Londoners. Ultimate responsibility lies with the Mayor, Sir Sadiq Khan, who is its Chair. Perhaps he should look for fresh leadership to replace the hapless Mr. Lord.

I’d be tempted to look further afield – sadly, he has just missed out on hiring Randy Clarke who has had his contract as General Manager of Washington DC’s Metro extended to 2029. When Clarke took over in 2022, Washington faced similar levels of fare evasion.

Clarke installed new ticket barriers that were harder to burst through and introduced robust enforcement. The result? The network has now clawed back tens of millions of dollars in lost revenue and crime across it has fallen 65 percent to a seven-year low.

In 2025, there are no consequence for graffiti or fare evasion on London’s transport network. Equally, there are no consequences for poor performance among managers at TfL. Like the city itself, Transport for London needs new leadership.