13 October 2025

Everyone in London deserves to travel without fear, and no one should face hate because of their religion, gender, sexuality, disability, race or ethnicity. However, our research has shown that many people have experienced a hate crime or hate incidences while travelling in London, and some groups of people are far more likely to experience certain types of crime and unwanted behaviour. The impact of this is that people who experience or witness crimes on the transport network become nervous about travelling because they don’t feel safe doing so.

Our research into personal security, published in 2022, highlighted concerning data around the perception of personal security when travelling on London’s transport network. The report found that:

  • Young people, women, disabled people, people of colour and LGBTQ+ people were at greater risk of victimisation from other people
  • 38 percent of disabled people had experienced a hate crime or harassment
  • Nearly one in four women had experienced unwanted sexual behaviour
  • Over 70 percent of people who felt unsafe have stopped travelling at certain times of the day.

Also concerning, our 2023 report Out in London found that 21 percent of LGBTQ+ respondents said they had been subject to hate crime while travelling.

We must also acknowledge several other important issues. While sexual harassment and hate crimes are different offences, a person can be subjected to both in one incident. When people of colour experience racism, the type of racism they experience varies based on identity and this may differ within and across demographics. We also know that passengers who wear visible religious dress are particularly concerned for their safety when travelling.

Lack of reporting

Hate crime remains a pressing issue for people in London and many incidents still go unreported. Many passengers don’t know where or how to report, have a lack of trust in the reporting system, or believe nothing will happen if they do come forward and report a crime.

Since the publication of our personal security report, we have been working closely with Transport for London (TfL), the British Transport Police and other key stakeholders to tackle hate crime and incidents on the city’s transport, including providing recommendations on how we can tackle this within the industry.

In November 2024, alongside TfL we hosted a personal security summit, bringing together many key players within the industry. Key takeaways from the summit were the need for more collaboration, better recognition of the impact of intersectionality, building inclusive campaigns and to address the barriers to reporting.

New campaign

We are keen to do more work in the future to better understand how the reporting pathway can be improved to make it easier for people to access support, report hate crimes and incidences and to build more trust in the reporting process.

We are also happy to see that recommendations from our 2022 report have been a key influence in supporting TfL’s new bystander awareness campaign, which calls for people to ‘be a friend’ to help make passengers feel like they are not alone. This campaign is designed to encourage others to intervene as an active bystander when they feel it is safe for them to do so.

We will continue to work with our partners to make sure that London is working towards providing a safe environment for everyone to travel in, whoever they are, and that people get the support they need to report a crime or intervene if they witness one.