Plain-clothes BTP officers and TfL inspectors stopped 467 people and made 24 arrests in Operation Vector's first month. What it means at Harrow's stations.

Anyone pushing through the barriers at Harrow-on-the-Hill, Harrow & Wealdstone or Stanmore may now be watched by officers they cannot pick out. Transport for London (TfL) and the British Transport Police (BTP) have spent a month running a new operation against repeat fare dodgers, and today published the first results.

Operation Vector pairs plain-clothes BTP officers with TfL’s Revenue Control teams and its uniformed Transport Support Enforcement staff. Officers work beyond the gateline and keep in contact with each other to track and stop people travelling without paying, TfL said.

Since it launched last month, 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

The release gives no station-by-station figures and names no stations in Harrow. That is deliberate, TfL says: by creating “greater uncertainty around where and when enforcement activity is taking place”, it wants to change behaviour across the whole network, which in Harrow means the Metropolitan, Jubilee, Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines and the Overground.

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.”

“It’s great to see our targeted enforcement work already having such positive results, supporting our wider fare evasion crackdown across the network with cutting-edge technology and intelligence-led policing.”

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

“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.”

“By bringing together plain-clothes police officers, Revenue Control teams and our uniformed enforcement officers, we are making it harder for repeat offenders to evade detection and helping to challenge the perception that fare evasion can take place without consequences.”

Weapons and drugs seized

BTP says the operation is also turning up 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, which in turn is making it a safer place, both for staff and the public.”

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

The wider numbers

Operation Vector runs alongside TfL’s routine checks at gatelines, on board services and inside stations, which it says concentrate on major hubs and places where barrier forcing is common. 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 halve the evasion rate to 1.5 per cent or less by 2030/31. Every unpaid fare is income that would otherwise be spent on the network, TfL said.

TfL’s full release is on the TfL newsroom.