London bus collision statistics by vehicle type

The request was successful.

Dear Transport for London,

Please provide statistics for collisions involving buses run on behalf of TfL, broken down on the one hand - by Operator or Route

and within that (ie for collisions involving each operator or route) - by what the collision was with, particularly including the type of vehicle, eg 'cycle', 'HGV', 'car'.

Please include an indication as to fault if this is can be cross-referenced with the above data, which need not be definitive (eg may be 'contested'). Please include how the indications as to fault were arrived at.

If possible, please provide an indication as to the proportion of total journeys accounted for by each operator/route, so that I can interpret the data as proportions.

Yours faithfully,

Brian Tanning

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Tanning

Our ref:  FOI-0977-1314

Thank you for your email received on 3 September 2013 asking for bus
collision statistics.

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 provided to you by 1 October 2013.

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

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team | Transport for London

Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0TL

[1][TfL request email]

show quoted sections

FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Tanning

Our ref:  FOI-0977-1314

Thank you for your email received on 3 September 2013 asking for bus
collision statistics.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.

I can confirm that we do hold the information you require, however to
provide you with the specific information requested  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 we estimate that 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.

The information you have requested is not readily available broken down
and cross referenced in the way you require it. Therefore to provide this
information would require us to analyse each collision to obtain the
relevant information. During a 2 year period there are approximately
45,000 incidents – although the vast majority are minor and do not cause
injury to any persons.  

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. You
may wish to refine your request by asking for information relating to
specific collisions or more broad categories which could include the type
of third party involved over a shorter time frame.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached
information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team | Transport for London

Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0TL

[1][TfL request email]

show quoted sections

Dear Transport for London,

Please pass this on to the person who conducts Freedom of Information reviews.

I am writing to request an internal review of Transport for London's handling of my FOI request 'London bus collision statistics by vehicle type'.

I asked for statistics
"broken down on the one hand - by Operator or Route", which gives you the choice of whether you use the route or the operator to subdivide the information.
It is implausible that this information is not already searchable on either of these fields.

I further asked for this information "within that (ie for collisions involving each operator or
route) - by what the collision was with, particularly including the
type of vehicle, eg 'cycle', 'HGV', 'car'."
It is, again, implausible, that if you collect any statistics on accidents for the purpose of analysis, that the information is not already subdivided by these categories.

I also asked for "an indication as to fault if this is can be cross-referenced with the above data, which need not be definitive". This extra request is clearly intended only IF it CAN be cross referenced with the other data. If it cannot be crossreferenced within the cost limit, then, for the pruposes of this request, it cannot be so crossreferenced and so you should have provided only the other data.

I am trying to guess what may have gone wrong within your organisation in processing my request, since this refusal was quite unexpected.

I can only guess that either:
1 - you mistook the more complex additional request as being integral (as described above)
2 - you do not store accident data broken down by either operator or route
3 - you do not store accident data broken down by type of vehicle
4 - you store data broken down by both of these categories, but separately, so that breaking down across both categories becomes more difficult.
5 - The data is not stored on a database, so that automatic processing is difficult
6 - the data is broken down by both categories, but only stored in such form by partners of TfL rather than TfL itself
7 - you have been instructed for political reasons to delay my request or deprioritise it to the point of failing to properly consider it at all.

Please help me by indicating which of these is the case, or otherwise explaining in more detail how a simple database query could breach the cost limit.

I would suggest the following courses of action in each case:
1- carry out the request as intended. Ignore the part of the request dealing with fault.
2 or 3 - state this fact clearly, since that would be a scandal.
4 or 5 - state the fact clearly, for the same reason, but also ask a member of IT staff how that part of the data which is held electronically might be transferred into a relational database and a query performed upon it. Provide the answer from the IT staff so that it can be verified whather this breaches the cost limit.
6 - Let me know who stores this data before it reaches TfL or after it leaves TfL and ask them for the data so that it may be processed for the purpose of the request.
7 - campaign to sack Boris next time ;)

These are genuine suggestions, but you will be best placed to judge what is the factor which supposedly makes this request breach the cost limit. Please respond candidly and in detail about what that may be, since it appears to me currently that this is an issue of horrendously inefficient storage and use of the data, which would be a matter of public interest in itself (and which I will therefore follow up if your response is unclear).

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/l...

Yours faithfully,

Brian Tanning

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Tanning

TfL Ref:          IRV-060-1314

Thank you for your request for an internal review which was received by
Transport for London (TfL) on 7 October 2013.

You have stated that you are dissatisfied with the handling of your
request for information under the Freedom of Information Act due to the
application of the cost limit exemption.  

The review will be conducted by an internal review panel in accordance
with TfL’s Internal Review Procedure, which is available via the following
URL:

[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/f...

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 4 November
2013. 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, we are continuing to work on your request and will
provide you with a response as soon as possible.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team | Transport for London

Windsor House, 42-50 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0TL

[2][TfL request email]

References

Visible links
1. http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloads/f...
2. mailto:[tfl%20request%20email]

FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

  • This attachment has been hidden. There are various reasons why we might have done this, sorry we can't be more specific here. Please contact us if you have any questions.

Ref: IRV-060-1314

Date 29 January 2014

Dear Mr Tanning

Subject: Outcome of internal review

The internal review of Transport for London’s (TfL) response to your
request for London bus collision statistics by bus type has been
completed. The review was carried out by an independent Review Panel (‘the
Panel’) consisting of individuals who were not involved in the handling of
your request.

In your original request you asked for “an indication of fault if this is
can be cross –referenced with the above data, which need not be definitive
(eg may be ‘contested’).” In your request for review you have made it
clear that this was intended to be an optional part of the request and
should have been disregarded if providing an indication of fault would be
likely to exceed the cost limit.

The Panel have determined that the attached information should have been
provided to you in response to your information request. Although the
Panel found that the “indication of fault” element of your request was
correctly considered as an integral part of your request, and should not
have been disregarded without further instruction from yourself, the Panel
also found that the cost limit had been incorrectly applied.

At the time your request was made the indication of fault was not recorded
for each incident in the spreadsheet. To obtain this information further
analysis would be required and as the information was not held at the time
of your request the correct response would be that only part of the
information requested was held. It was incorrect for the time that would
be required for the analysis of data to determine fault to be included in
the calculation of the cost limit, and instead we should have advised that
whilst TfL holds some contextual information about some incidents, this
does not amount to an indication of fault.

I apologise for this error and for the delay in providing the attached
spreadsheet. We are committed to making continuous improvements to our
services, both through staff training and our process and procedures. Both
have been revised since your original request and I hope that this will
avoid a repeat of this error in future.

I hope this information is of assistance. If you are dissatisfied with the
outcome of this internal review, 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 available on the ICO’s website (www.ico.gov.uk).

Yours sincerely

Simon Guild

Information Access Manager

[1][TfL request email]

show quoted sections

 

References

Visible links
1. mailto:[tfl%20request%20email]

Dear Transport for London,

Thankyou for fulfilling my FOI request on bus collisions.

A full history of my FOI request and all correspondence is available on the Internet at this address: https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/l...

I would like to ask for two things to be clarified:
1. Could you tell me what 'other vehicle' could refer to? I notice that 'car', 'lorry', 'van', bicycle' are all categories and I am wondering how so many collisions could be with vehicles not in these categories.
2. Would you provide a list of the operators of each route?

Thankyou for your attention to this.

Yours faithfully,

Brian Tanning

FOI, Transport for London

Dear Mr Tanning

Our Ref:         FOI-2172-1314

Thank you for your e-mail received on 5 February 2014 asking for further
information about London bus collisions.

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

A response will be provided to you by 5 March 2014.

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

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[1][TfL request email]

show quoted sections

FOI, Transport for London

1 Attachment

Dear Mr Tanning

Our Ref:         FOI-2172-1314

Thank you for your e-mail received on 5 February 2014 asking for further
information about London bus collisions.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.  I can
confirm we hold some of the information you require.

When incidents occur on the bus network all bus operating companies are
required to record the incident using the incidents management system. One
of the controls available to bus operators is the option to select the
third party from a drop-down list. This list is not exhaustive and
contains only common categories such as car, lorry, bicycle, other TfL
buses, motorbike and ‘other vehicle’. Bus operators will usually select
the ‘other vehicle’ category when no match is found from the existing list
or this is the closest match to the third-party motorist involved from
information passed to the bus garage.

A list of Bus Operators is available on the TfL website using the
following link:

[1]http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/businessandpar...

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, please feel free to contact me.

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

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[2][TfL request email]

show quoted sections