Bicycle traffic counts

Our Ref : 1007864795

Date : 10.11.2010

Ms A Baxevanis

[FOI #51369 email]

Dear Ms Baxevanis

Thank you for your request for information dated 09/11/10 which was
received by Transport for London on 09/11/10. This request will be dealt
with under the terms of the Freedom of Information Act 2000.

We aim to deal with your request promptly and provide you with a response
by 07/12/10.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your
request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Once again, thank you for taking the time to contact us.

Yours sincerely

Patricia Mitchell

Head of Customer Services, Surface Transport

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Our Ref:         1007864795/GJ

Date:               7.12.2010

Dear Mr Baxevanis

Thank you for your e-mail received by Transport for London (TfL) on 9
November 2010 asking for information about bicycle traffic counters
operated by TfL.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and I can confirm that TfL does hold the information
you require.

1) A list of the locations of all Automatic Cycle Counters that TfL
currently operates, including any counters that are placed along the
London Cycle Superhighway network. Please provide the full geographic
coordinates for each location instead of just a generic street name.

2) The data (number of bicycles counted) that has been collected by each
of these counters for the last year (or for as long as each counter has
been operating, if this is less than one year). Please provide such data
in the maximum available temporal resolution, i.e. counts per hour or per
day, instead of monthly or yearly aggregates.

We are able to provide you with some bicycle traffic counter data which is
pre-2010, as it was previously collated to identify cycle growth over two
years at a strategic level for the Travel in London (2010) report. The
information for 2010 was not included in this report as this year has not
yet ended.

Please find attached a spreadsheet for 2008-2009 including:

o A list of bicycle traffic counters operated by TfL
o Geographic coordinates for each site
o Traffic counts for each of these sites

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested for 2010
would exceed the `appropriate limit' of £450 set by the Freedom of
Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

Under section 12 of the FOI Act, we are not obliged to comply with a
request if the cost of determining whether we hold the information,
locating and retrieving it and extracting it from other information would
exceed the appropriate limit. This is calculated at £25 per hour for
every hour spent on the activities described.

We have estimated that it would cost £600 to provide a response to your
current request; this figure is based on the estimated time it would take
to extract and compile the data you require for 2010.

The system which currently stores this information is called VDA Pro, a
specialist package used to store the cycle count database. It is saved and
stored in Excel to enable access by users that do not have VDA Pro and to
enable TfL to update the data in monthly periods. Once 12 full months of
data have been compiled, the information is then collated to show a full
year which makes it easier for TfL to review annually.

The information you require is stored in 12 monthly files, but please note
that with 96 sites across London this would be 1152 files held in total.
TfL has estimated that it would take one individual 15 minutes to search
the files for each site, this would mean that per hour an individual could
search 4 sites, equating to a total of 24 hours to search all 96 sites.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450
limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more
easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For
example, you may wish to focus your request by being more specific about
the particular information you wish to obtain and including relevant
dates/timeframes.

Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive
your revised request.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your
request, please do not hesitate to contact me. Please see the attached
information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as
information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of
the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

Corporate Governance Directorate

General Counsel

Transport for London

[1][TfL request email]

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