Road Collisions involving TfL buses

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 1931-1212

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 12 February 2013.

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 12 March 2013

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

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 1931-1213

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 12
February 2013 asking for information about road collisions involving TfL's
bus services.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and TfL’s information access policy. 

Because we are in the process of finalising our response we have not been
able to resolve your request within the statutory 20 working day.

We intend to provide you with a full response as soon as possible. Please
accept my apologies for this delay.

In the meantime, if you have any queries relating to your request, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

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

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 1931-1213

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 12
February 2013.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information Act and TfL’s information access policy.  I
apologise for the delay in replying. I can confirm TfL holds some of the
information you require. You asked for:

Information regarding the road collisions involving TfL's bus services
contracted for the period from 1 January 2010 to today's date.  Included
in this information I would like:

Date of accident


Operator name


Summary details of the accident (i.e., pedestrian, cyclist, vehicle,
other)

London Borough where accident occurred

For the avoidance of doubt I would like the information you provided your
response (Ref: 1005060985
 - Date 21.10.2009) updated and with an
additional column showing “London Borough where accident occurred.”

TfL does not regard statistics by operator as a sound basis for comparison
or a reliable indicator of bus operator safety performance as they do not
compare routes of a similar nature. Routes run through busy central or
less congested peripheral parts of London, where vastly different numbers
of pedestrians, motorists and cyclists are encountered. They also do not
take account of the size and changing complexion of route portfolios
companies operate.

The tables supplied provide a broad overview of collisions but it should
be noted that the figures are based on initial assessments of the nature
and cause of incidents, and are not the outcomes of operator accident
investigations.  Accident investigations provide the best means of
understanding the circumstances behind incidents and considering how best
to minimise them in future.  We actively encourage bus drivers and
operators to record all incidents involving London buses and as a result
of this, the vast majority of incidents provided would have been of a very
minor nature.

A new database was introduced in 2009/10. The new system initially allowed
operators to enter text rather than select a borough from a drop-down
menu. Where it was not possible to identify the borough from the
information entered, the words ``not specified’’ were inserted as a
default category. This field was later updated to ensure a London area had
to be selected from a drop-down list. Because of these initial problems it
has not been possible to provide the borough against all incidents
recorded in 2009/10.

The London bus network comprises more than 8,600 vehicles and operates 490
million kilometres a year across more than 700 bus routes.  In the past
financial year, there were 2.35 billion customer journeys on our buses
which, when considered against the total number of accidents, shows how
safe bus travel is.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, 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

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Our ref: IRV 154-1213

Dear Mr Kearney

Request for internal review

Thank you for your request for an internal review which was received by
Transport for London (TfL) on 25 March 2013.

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

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 24 April 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.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Ref: IRV-154-1213

Date 21 May 2013

Dear Mr Kearney

Subject: Outcome of internal review

I am contacting you regarding the internal review of your request for
information concerning information about road collisions. This review has
been carried out following your email of 23 March 2013 regarding the
response to your request for information under the Freedom of Information
Act. Please accept my sincere apologies for the delay in responding.

You asked for further information as to why we were unable to provide more
detailed information for the period 1 April – 31 March 2011 which we have
provided for previous periods in other responses.

Having discussed the issue further with the relevant business area, I can
advise that there were numerous difficulties in migrating the data
required as the way the information is recorded in Excel has changed
significantly since previous FOI requests for data from earlier periods. 
As a large authority, we must ensure our incidents management system
remains compatible with information technology upgrades, is easy to use
and captures data in the way envisaged. In 2009, we took the decision to
modify the system to replace some fields, allowing free text to be
entered, with mandatory drop-down menus to improve the quality of
reporting. This included the ``borough’’ field where filters could not
exact the information in a discernable form. The modifications averted
this issue and made reporting more straight forward for around 200 users.
As has been explained in our earlier response, the information in that
field has been replaced with the words ``not specified’’ to indicate it is
redundant.

Due to this it was considered whether to provide the information would
exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information
(Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004.

However, the business area concerned continued to compile the information
to the best of their ability given the difficulties in the change of
recording systems and the volume of information involved, to provide you
with as much information as they were able.  Unfortunately though, it was
not possible to provide the borough against all incidents recorded in
2009/10.

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

Emma Flint

Information Access Adviser

[1][TfL request email]

From: FOI
Sent: 25 March 2013 17:00
To: '[FOI #149530 email]'
Subject: Internal review of Freedom of Information request - Road
Collisions involving TfL buses

Our ref: IRV 154-1213

Dear Mr Kearney

Request for internal review

Thank you for your request for an internal review which was received by
Transport for London (TfL) on 25 March 2013.

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

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:

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

Every effort will be made to provide you with a response by 24 April 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.

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 0351-1314

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 22 May
2013  asking for information about road collision data involving TfL
buses. I am sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

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 20 June 2013.

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

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 0351-1314

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 22 May
2013 asking for information about road collision data involving TfL buses.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of
the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. 

Because we are in the process of finalising our response we will not be
able to resolve your request within the statutory 20 working day.

We intend to provide you with a full response as soon as possible. Please
accept my apologies for this delay.

In the meantime, if you have any queries relating to your request, please
do not hesitate to contact me.

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

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

From: FOI
Sent: 31 May 2013 18:18
To: '[FOI #149530 email]'
Subject: FOI Request

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 0351-1314

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 22 May
2013  asking for information about road collision data involving TfL
buses. I am sorry for the delay in getting back to you.

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 20 June 2013.

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

Yours sincerely

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections

Dear Mr Kearney

TfL Ref: 0351-1314

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 23 May
2013 asking for information about road collisions involving TfL buses for
the period 1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011. Please accept my sincere
apologies for the delay in responding.

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 do hold the information you require.

I have attached the outstanding information, which should have been
included in our response to your initial request of 12 February 2013 (TfL
Ref: 1931-1213). Please accept our apologies for this omission, which was
due to human error when compiling the response. The attached data is from
1 April 2010 to 31 March 2011 and identifies the bus operator, time and
date of incident, borough and type of incident.

These figures and those previously provided should be considered against
the size of London's bus network - 8,500 buses and 6 million journeys a
day. Bus operators are required to report all incidents to us and many of
those included in the reports are minor incidents involving no personal
injuries. Although all incidents must be reported, in many cases there is
no suggestion that the driver was at fault.

The proportion of road traffic accidents involving London buses which
result in an injury is actually very small at six per cent and falling.
Specifically, between 2007/08 and 2011/12 collisions between London buses
and cyclists were halved and data from the last two years shows that only
a third of these incidents result in injuries. Collisions with pedestrians
also fell by 40 per cent between 2007/08 and 2011/12, and we hope to
record a reduction of 50 per cent (from 16 to eight) which result in
fatality by the end of 2012/13 when compared with 2007/08.

There is no room for complacency, and the Mayor and TfL are working with
pedestrian, cycling and safety stakeholders to develop both a pedestrian
safety action plan and a wide range of initiatives to further improve
cycle safety.

London's bus drivers have the highest standards of training anywhere in
the UK and we work closely with the bus companies to ensure all drivers
are trained to operate safely on our roads and take care around cyclists
and pedestrians.

We co-operate fully with the police where there is any suggestion of
dangerous driving on the part of a bus driver.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable
to access it for some reason, 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

Jasmine Howard

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

show quoted sections