Transport for London (26 012 798)
Category : Transport and highways > Traffic management
Decision : Closed after initial enquiries
Decision date : 17 Sep 2026
The Ombudsman's final decision:
Summary: We will not investigate this complaint about Transport for London’s refusal to refund Mr X £40 he paid in advance for driving in the congestion charge. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by the authority and the injustice Mr X claims is not significant enough to warrant investigation.
The complaint
- Mr X complains Transport for London (TfL) has refused to refund his congestion charge payments totalling £40 for journeys which did not take him into the congestion charge zone.
The Ombudsman’s role and powers
- We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’, which we call ‘fault’. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint, which we call ‘injustice’. We provide a free service, but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:
- there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating, or
- any fault has not caused injustice to the person who complained, or
- any injustice is not significant enough to justify our involvement. (Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), section 34(B))
How I considered this complaint
- I considered information provided by Mr X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.
My assessment
- We do not investigate all the complaints we receive. In deciding whether to investigate we need to consider various tests. These include the alleged injustice to the person complaining. We only investigate the most serious complaints.
- I appreciate Mr X is frustrated he paid for driving in the congestion charge zone when he did not need to, but this was not the result of any fault by TfL and the amount he paid is not significant enough to warrant further investigation.
Final decision
- We will not investigate this complaint. This is because there is not enough evidence of fault by TfL and the injustice Mr X claims is not significant enough to warrant investigation.
Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman