Dramatic footage shows the passenger apparently attempting to barge through the barriers at Enfield Town train station without paying for his journey.
The TfL officer is seen halting the passenger at the terminus, blocking his path through the gate as the passenger attempts to break through.
The inspector is seen prising the doors of the gate apart as he pushes the passenger back towards the platform. He can be heard telling the passenger repeatedly to “go back”.
Finding no way out, the passenger is forced to retreat as he is jostled back through the barriers by the inspector.
The fare-dodger can be heard exclaiming: “I understand that but stop putting your hands on me, bro.”
The scuffle garners the attention of many onlookers who watch as the passenger is taken to the side where additional inspectors join.
London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan has frequently come under fire for not doing enough to stop fare evasion, while simultaneously hiking fare prices.
Around 400,000 journeys a day are evaded across the TfL network, costing the transport authority almost £200 million a year in income.
Only around 69,000 fines were handed out in the year to the end of March, TfL figures show.
However, TfL said earlier this month that it had secured 14,406 convictions for fare evasion in 2025/26 - an increase of 955.
Fare dodging has long been a growing concern among Londoners.
The original Instagram post of the debacle has received more than 1,000 comments praising the inspector and over 8,000 likes.
One commenter on the Instagram post said: “First time I’ve seen them stop someone! These guys [are] actually working.”
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Another wrote: “Instead of increasing the wages of Tube drivers, maybe they should be hiring more of these guys to keep an eye on people.”
Plenty of other users expressed their “respect” for the inspector, adding that “everyone has to pay” for their transport fare.
A TfL spokesperson said: “Fare evasion is a criminal offence and robs Londoners of investment in safe, clean and reliable public transport. By focusing our enforcement teams on locations with a high prevalence of people pushing through gates and using the latest technology to target the most prolific fare evaders across the network, the pan-TfL fare evasion rate has dropped to 3.5 per cent from down from 3.9 per cent in 2022/23 . This builds on the work of our team of more than 500 uniformed officers already deployed across the network to deal with fare evasion and other anti-social behaviour, keeping staff and customers safe, and we’re pleased to see our officer deal with this situation in line with the training all our officers receive on managing conflict.
“We are committed to reducing the current rate of fare evasion to 1.5 per cent by 2030/31 financial year and the strategy we now have in place will help us ensure more persistent evaders face justice."