TfL made London's New Routemaster front-boarding only after a pilot halved fare evasion

What was changed

London's New Routemaster, launched in 2012 as Boris Johnson's flagship bus design, let passengers board through front, middle and rear doors — an open-platform nod to the old Routemaster. Fare evasion on the vehicles ran at twice the rate of London's front-boarding-only buses, and TfL estimated more than £3.6m a year was lost through people not paying on New Routemasters compared with other buses.

In 2019 TfL ran a pilot on route 8: front-door boarding only. Evasion rates more than halved, boarding times did not slow, and accessibility passengers kept using the middle doors without competing with other passengers as they previously had to.

Director of bus operations Claire Mann called fare dodging "criminal and unfair" and said the successful pilot showed front-door-only boarding does not delay the service, so all other New Routemasters would follow suit, with the first buses converted on 25 January 2020.

Why it worked

Open middle and rear doors made riding without paying nearly effortless, and evasion ran at double the rate of other buses.

The route 8 pilot proved closing the rear doors more than halved evasion without delaying boarding.

Keeping middle doors available for accessibility users removed the main fairness objection to front-entry only.

What can be applied

A signature design feature has to pay its way: when the numbers showed open-platform boarding was an unpaid fare loophole, TfL reversed it without touching the rest of the bus.

Aftermath

Conversion began on 25 January 2020 with the first buses, and TfL said all other New Routemasters would follow. The pilot had already answered the two obvious objections — boarding speed and accessibility, since passengers with accessibility needs could still use the middle doors. Eight years after the bus entered service, one of its signature features was walked back to close the revenue leak.