Please provide as much information as possible for the last 5 years on: 1. Number of passengers taking dogs on tube, overground, buses 2. Recorded incidents, problems, prosecutions involving dogs 3. Number of times passengers with dogs have been refused access to buses, tubes or overground

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TfL Ref: 0057-1819 

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 6 April 2018 asking for information about dogs on public transport. 

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

 

 Please provide as much information as possible for the last 5 years on: 

1. Number of passengers taking dogs on tube, overground, buses 

2. Recorded incidents, problems, prosecutions involving dogs 

3. Number of times passengers with dogs have been refused access to buses, tubes or overground

 

 For part 1 of your request, unfortunately we do not hold the information you have requested as we do not count or monitor the number of journeys where passengers take dogs.

 

With regards to the second and third parts of your request, unfortunately, to provide the information you have 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.

 

We have estimated that it would significantly exceed the appropriate limit to provide a response to your current request. This is because as we don’t specifically and purposefully collate this information, the only way we could try and extract the information you have asked for in part 2 of your request would be to search one or more of our databases (customer services, legal services), against a keyword of “dog”, then manually checking each case individually to see if it meets one of the criteria you have listed in your request. You have also requested this information for the last five years which will mean its likely that hundreds, if not thousands, of cases will be captured by the search over this period of time. It is also worth pointing out that we would only hold information on incidents that have been specifically reported to us which may mean that the data will not reflect the situation accurately. Likewise we do not gather information on when passengers with dogs have been refused access onto buses, Tubes or trains unless the customer had specifically reported it to us. Again, we would have to conduct a search using the keyword ‘dog’ or ‘refused’ which would generate a large number of cases which would need to be manually reviewed. It is also not clear from your request whether you are asking for information on the refusal because of the passenger’s dog. 

 If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation. Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do 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.

 

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. I am sorry that we have been unable to assist you with your request. 

Yours sincerely  

  Sara Thomas 

FOI Case Management Team 

General Counsel 

Transport for London 

  

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