Taxi Apps and starting the taximeter.
PaulBishop made this Freedom of Information request to Transport for London This request has been closed to new correspondence. Contact us if you think it should be reopened.
Dear Transport for London,
1. Does TFL have a legal opinion or ordinary opinion that a taxi app job offered to a taxi driver constitutes a booking? If so, can you please publish this legal opinion or ordinary opinion?
2. If TFL agree the case of DPP v Comcab basically sets out that a taxi hiring starts when the booking is accepted by the taxi driver then:
Has TFL sourced a legal opinion whether a taxi driver would be prosecuted for starting the taximeter once the app booking has been accepted and the taxi driver has started driving to the passengers pick up location?
If so, can you please publish your legal opinion on this point?
(There is no free flow of information between TFL and taxi app companies to consider for rejection of this request because there is no regulation of taxi app companies by TFL, similar to how TFL regulate private hire app companies/operators and require the free flow of information).
3. Alternatively, does TFL have a legal opinion or ordinary opinion to publish that shows the taxi driver is contracting with the app company and at what point the taxi driver starts the taximeter after accepting the app booking is a matter between the taxi driver and the app company?
4. Or a further alternative, does TFL have a legal opinion or ordinary opinion to publish that shows it is unlawful for a taxi driver to start the taximeter until the passenger has entered the taxi even though the taxi driver has pressed accept and accepted the booking on the app some considerable time earlier than picking up the passenger?
5. Lastly, how many taxi drivers has TFL prosecuted in the last 36 months for charging a fare above what has been showing on the taximeter when the taxi trip fare is charged via an app?
Yours faithfully,
Paul Bishop
Dear Paul Bishop
Our ref: FOI-1030-2122/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 19
August 2021 asking for information about Taxi Apps.
Your request will be considered in accordance with the Freedom of
Information Act 2000 and our information access policy, and we will issue
you with a response by 16 September 2021. 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.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
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Dear Paul Bishop
Our ref: FOI-1030-2122/GH & FOI-1031-2122/GH
Thank you for your requests received by Transport for London (TfL) on 19
August 2021.
Your requests have been considered under the requirements of the Freedom
of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
However, to be able to confirm whether we hold the information requested
and to then provide a full response 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
requests 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. In this instance, we
estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18
hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations),
exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
The requesting and provision of legal opinion and advice is conducted
within the general course of business and so there is no central
repository or reportable manner in which this information can be easily
obtained. In order to ascertain whether we hold any information in
response to your request we would need to manually review a significant
volume of correspondence to consider what, if anything, fits within the
scope of your request. This would be an extensive process for which it
would be difficult to determine at what point we could be satisfied that
we have exhausted all avenues of searching and therefore in a position to
provide a full response. As a result the cost limit would be significantly
breached.
It is perhaps also worth noting that the provision of legal advice is
generally considered for exemption in accordance with section 42 of the
FOI Act and so, even if it were found that information was held, it would
be likely that this exemption would be strongly considered and possibly
applied.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450
limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on
matters which are important to you.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a
request for specific documents, the Freedom of Information Act can only be
used to request recorded information. TfL does not have to answer your
question if it would require the creation of new information or the
provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not
already recorded at the time of your request. As previously explained, TfL
does not generally provide legal opinions externally, and any legal advice
which is held is likely to exempt from disclosure under section 42 of the
Freedom of Information Act.
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
General Counsel
Transport for London
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Dear FOI,
I would be grateful if you could offer me guidance into how I could best reframe the request in order to obtain as much of the information as possible, while bringing it below the cost limit.
As you may be aware, Section 16 of the FOI Code of Practice (https://www.gov.uk/government/publicatio...) advises that bodies should 'provide advice and assistance, so far as it would be reasonable to expect the authority to do so' and ICO guidance (https://ico.org.uk/media/for-organisatio...) interprets this as a suggestion that the authority should provide suggestions of this nature.
Yours sincerely,
PaulBishop
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