Transport for London (TfL) fares will increase by 1% above inflation next month, mayor Sadiq Khan has announced.
TfL said the average 4.8% rise from 1 March follows conditions in the short-term extension of its funding agreement with the Government.
Mr Khan said: ‘Public transport should be affordable to all, and I’ve taken bold action to ensure this since I became Mayor by introducing the unlimited Hopper bus fare and freezing all TfL fares from 2016-2021 - saving the average London household over £200.
‘Since TfL’s finances were decimated by the pandemic, the Government has set strict conditions as part of the emergency funding deals to keep essential transport services running in London. We have been forced into this position by the Government and the way it continues to refuse to properly fund TfL, but I have done everything in my power to keep fares as affordable as possible.’
TfL said the fare increases will help ensure that it can reach financial sustainability by April 2023 in line with the long-term objective of the funding agreements, while also ensuring the increase in fares is as affordable as possible for Londoners.
It said that while single pay-as-you-go fares on Tube, DLR and most TfL-run rail services will increase by RPI+1, bus and tram single fares will increase by 10p to £1.65, and the daily cap will increase by 30p to £4.95, the price of three single journeys.
TfL said that as rail revenue is significantly higher than bus and tram revenue, and it has budgeted for fares to rise by RPI+1% overall, bus and tram fares will need to increase by the equivalent of RPI+2.7% to achieve the overall rise.
Centre for London chief executive Nick Bowes said the announcement ‘further strengthens the importance of a long-term sustainable funding deal being agreed with Government as a matter of urgency'.
He said: ‘Today’s steep fare rises will add further to the cost of living pressures being felt by Londoners. At a time when the priority is getting more people back on to tubes, buses and trains, the risk is a rise like this will have the opposite effect, dampen the city’s recovery from the pandemic, hitting central London’s economy particularly hard.'
TfL has also trumpeted the introduction of new, higher specification all-electric buses (pictured) on one of its routes but warned that it ‘will not be able to introduce any further new or retrofitted buses on other routes without a long-term funding deal’, meaning that ‘the less green and increasingly ageing bus fleet will have to remain on the roads’.
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