Questions Over Tube Chiefs' £1m Mystery Shop

In the UK, London Underground Ltd (LUL) has been criticised for spending nearly £1m on the recruitment of 'fake' passengers by GfK to mystery shop its service.

The Tube's bosses authorised a budget of £933k in 2009/10 to hire people to report on train service, station 'ambience', and knowledge and helpfulness of staff.

Critics say the programme, which cost just £384k four years ago, should have been carried out by genuine commuters instead of mystery shoppers.

The figures have also been slated as 'excessive' by Labour's transport spokeswoman for the London Assembly, Val Shawcross, who suggests: 'All they need to do to understand what is going wrong with the Tube is to ask real passengers'.

However, LUL said the views of 'real passengers' are taken alongside those of the mystery shoppers, and that the cost of such surveys is a 'very small fraction' of Transport for London's £9bn annual budget.

'We're working further to improve the quality and cleanliness of services and stations, the experience of our disabled customers, as well as the information provided to Londoners,' LUL claimed in a statement. These surveys play an important part in ensuring we deliver the best possible value for fare payers' and taxpayers' money.'

However, Gerry Doherty, leader of the TSSA transport union disagrees, saying that LUL should use the money to keep stations staffed all the time, instead of axing jobs.

'In a time of austerity when there is money being saved everywhere this seems really excessive. To spend a million pounds putting fake passengers around the service when the service is already overcrowded, can only be making the overcrowding worse with people who don't actually have to be there,' Doherty added.