Dear Jayden Schwark

TfL Ref: 2238-2122

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 31
December 2021 asking for information about tube train door opening and
closing noises

Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. 

A response will be sent to you by 31 January 2022. We publish a
substantial range of information on our website on subjects including
operational performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data, governance
and our financial performance. This includes data which is frequently
asked for in FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.

We will publish anonymised versions of requests and responses on the
[2]www.tfl.gov.uk website. We will not publish your name and we will send
a copy of the response to you before it is published on our website.

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Jayden Schwark

TfL Ref: 2238-2122

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 31
December 2021 asking for information about tube train door opening and
closing sounds.

Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. You
asked for the sound files for the opening and closing of tube train doors
on the Underground for any line.

Please note that we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the
Act. This is because we are unable to provide these audio recordings
without an exhaustive search across London Underground Limited / TfL to
determine if and where they may be held and for which individual tube
lines they may be held. To clarify, our sound files are not held in any
central repository and each tube line may use different train stock and
train door design which in turn may mean they have different sounds
associated with the opening and closing of the tube train doors.   In the
event that any sound files are located, we would also need to manually
review the associated individual contracts under which these recordings
are provided to ascertain whether the release of any files is permissible
within the agreements in place.

This is information in which there is very limited public interest but
would require significant resource to locate, extract and collate the
information you have requested. Whilst transparency and openness is a
vital part of our work, the work involved in providing the requested
information would therefore place an unreasonable burden on us. Our
principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London and
we consider that answering this request would represent a disproportionate
effort.  It would be a significant distraction from our work managing the
TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited resources and
placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of personnel. We do wish
to clarify that whilst we consider that your request falls under section
14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been
your intention to deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to
appeal.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[1][TfL request email]

From: FOI
Sent: 06 January 2022 10:16
To: 'Jayden Schwark' <[2][FOI #818828 email]>
Subject: new foi ref 2238-2122 CRM:0138447

Dear Jayden Schwark

TfL Ref: 2238-2122

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 31
December 2021 asking for information about tube train door opening and
closing noises

Your request will be processed in accordance with the requirements of the
Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. 

A response will be sent to you by 31 January 2022. We publish a
substantial range of information on our website on subjects including
operational performance, contracts, expenditure, journey data, governance
and our financial performance. This includes data which is frequently
asked for in FOI requests or other public queries. Please check
[3]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transpar... to see if this helps you.

We will publish anonymised versions of requests and responses on the
[4]www.tfl.gov.uk website. We will not publish your name and we will send
a copy of the response to you before it is published on our website.

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

TfL Ref: IRV-063-2122

Thank you for your email which was received by Transport for London (TfL) on 12 January 2022.

You have stated that you are dissatisfied with the handling of your request for information under the Freedom of Information Act.

A review will be conducted by an internal review panel in accordance with TfL’s Internal Review Procedure, which is available via the following URL:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparenc...

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 9 February 2022. However, if the review will not be completed by this date, we will contact you and notify you of the revised response date as soon as possible.

In the meantime, if you would like to discuss this matter further, please feel free to contact me.
Yours sincerely

Emma Flint
Principal Information Access Adviser
FOI Case Management Team
Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Schwark

I am contacting you with regards to your email request for an internal
review on 12 January 2022. Following your email a review has been carried
out by an Independent Review Panel (‘the panel’) consisting of individuals
who were not involved in the handling of your request (FOI-2238-2122)

Your request of the 31 December specifically asked the following –

“I am kindly requesting that, if you have access to the noises of Door
Opening and Closing on the Underground (any line possible), that you can
send it to me.”

Firstly it’s worth noting that when making an FOI request, and to enable
an authority to assist, you need to provide a more detailed description of
the information you’re seeking together with any other details you think
might help us locate the information you require.

The Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information
held by Transport for London. There are limits on the time that we are
required to spend determining whether we hold the information you are
requesting and the time spent locating, retrieving and extracting it.
Therefore you should identify the information that you want as clearly and
concisely as you can. For example in this instance naming a specific
underground line rather than casting a wide and general net. Under the
FOIA an authority is not obliged to decide what information you may or may
not find of relevance and of most priority.

To provide a little more context regarding the exemption cited in our
response of 12 January, section 14 of the FOI Act outlines the remit
whereby a public authority does not have to comply with a ‘vexatious
request’. S14 can be used in a variety of circumstances where a request,
or its impact on a public authority, cannot be justified, however it can
only be applied to the request itself and not the individual who submitted
it and there are no public interest test considerations.

The Freedom of Information Act was designed to give individuals a greater
right of access to official information with the intention of making
public bodies more transparent and accountable. Whilst most requesters
exercise this right responsibly, a few may misuse or abuse the Act by
submitting requests which are intended to be annoying or disruptive or
which have a disproportionate impact on a public authorities resources. We
make no suggestion that it is your intention to cause disruption or misuse
the act, however s14 is designed to protect public authorities by allowing
them to refuse a request which will have the potential to cause a
disproportionate or unjustified level of disruption.

The emphasis on protecting public authorities’ resources from unreasonable
requests was acknowledged by the Upper Tribunal in the case of Information
Commissioner vs Devon County Council & Dransfield [2012] UKUT 440 (AAC),
(28 January 2013) when it defined the purpose of section 14 as follows;
‘Section 14…is concerned with the nature of the request and has the effect
of disapplying the citizen’s right under Section 1(1)…The purpose of
Section 14…must be to protect the resources (in the broadest sense of that
word) of the public authority from being squandered on disproportionate
use of FOIA…’ (paragraph 10) -
[1]http://administrativeappeals.decisions.t...

When attempting to identify potentially vexatious requests the Information
Commissioners Office provides public authorities guidance on the typical
‘key features’ of s14. However these indicators are not to be regarded as
either definitive or limiting and a public authority remains free to
refuse a request as vexatious based on their own assessment of all the
relevant circumstances. These ‘key features’ as outlined by the
Information Commissioner are listed below for your information-

• Abusive or aggressive language

The tone or language of the requester’s correspondence goes beyond the
level of criticism that a public authority or its employees should
reasonably expect to receive.

• Burden on the authority

The effort required to meet the request will be so grossly oppressive in
terms of the strain on time and resources, that the authority cannot
reasonably be expected to comply, no matter how legitimate the subject
matter or valid the intentions of the requester.

• Personal grudges

For whatever reason, the requester is targeting their correspondence
towards a particular employee or office holder against whom they have some
personal enmity.

• Unreasonable persistence

The requester is attempting to reopen an issue which has already been
comprehensively addressed by the public authority, or otherwise subjected
to some form of independent scrutiny.

• Unfounded accusations

The request makes completely unsubstantiated accusations against the
public authority or specific employees.

• Intransigence

The requester takes an unreasonably entrenched position, rejecting
attempts to assist and advise out of hand and shows no willingness to
engage with the authority.

• Frequent or overlapping requests

The requester submits frequent correspondence about the same issue or
sends in new requests before the public authority has had an opportunity
to address their earlier enquiries.

• Deliberate intention to cause annoyance

The requester has explicitly stated that it is their intention to cause
disruption to the public authority, or is a member of a campaign group
whose stated aim is to disrupt the authority

• Scattergun approach

The request appears to be part of a completely random approach, lacks any
clear focus, or seems to have been solely designed for the purpose of
‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed.

• Disproportionate effort

The matter being pursued by the requester is relatively trivial and the
authority would have to expend a disproportionate amount of resources in
order to meet their request.

• No obvious intent to obtain information

The requester is abusing their rights of access to information by using
the legislation as a means to vent their anger at a particular decision,
or to harass and annoy the authority, for example, by requesting
information which the authority knows them to possess already.

• Futile requests

The issue at hand individually affects the requester and has already been
conclusively resolved by the authority or subjected to some form of
independent investigation.

• Frivolous requests

The subject matter is inane or extremely trivial and the request appears
to lack any serious purpose. The request is made for the sole purpose of
amusement.

The conclusion that s14(1) is engaged was reached on the basis that we
could not justify the diversion of specialist resources and
disproportionate effort to try and address the information that you sought
which fell within the remit of the FOIA.  

Transport for London receive around 3500 requests under the Freedom of
Information Act and Environmental Information Regulations every year. A
number of these requests come from transport enthusiasts and their
requests for information have shaped our proactive publication of
information. We are very enthusiastic about public transport ourselves and
we recognise that people are interested in London’s iconic transport
network and we are of course mindful of both our duty to advise and assist
and our commitment to transparency more generally. However it is clear the
that the time and diversion of staff resource to address your request is
unreasonable, requiring the redirection of limited specialist resources
and the attention of staff away from their core functions who could be
supporting other essential activity.

Essentially, we do not consider that there is anything more than the most
marginal benefit to the public good through the release of the requested
information. This does not help anyone plan a journey or assess the
provision of transport services in London. It does not contribute to
openness or transparency or increase public understanding of the delivery
of services. We believe that this is essentially a frivolous requests.
Whilst we recognise that some people are interested in transport ephemera,
we do not consider that this interest is the same as the public interest.

Therefore your complaint has not been upheld on this occasion.

Further information on the Information Commissioner’s guidance on section
14 can be found here:
[2]https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...

The Panel appreciate that the above response may come as a disappointment
but we hope our response has provided a better clarity regarding the
provision of the information you seek. However if you are dissatisfied
with the internal review actions to date please do not hesitate to contact
me ([3][TfL request email]) or alternately you can refer the matter to the
independent authority responsible for enforcing the Freedom of Information
Act, at the following address:

Information Commissioner’s Office

Wycliffe House

Water Lane

Wilmslow

Cheshire SK9 5AF

A complaint form is also available on the ICO’s website
([4]www.ico.org.uk).

Yours sincerely

Emma Flint

Principal Information Access Adviser

FOI Case Management Team

Transport for London

[5][TfL request email]

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References

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5. mailto:[TfL request email]
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