I am writing to you under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 to request an up-to-date list of all Taxi and Private Hire Operators currently licensed by the authority. Please provide the information in Excel format and please include the following information: 1. Licensee name; 2. Trading name; 3. License expiry date; 4. Business operating address including post code; 5. Business landline telephone number for bookings. Please state if app-based only and no telephone number is available for bookings; 6. Business email address for booking requests; 7. Number of vehicles/drivers registered to each operator Items 4., 5. and 6. above do not constitute exempt information under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 Section 40(2) (personal information) insofar as they relate to the trading, or “shop front” of the businesses. If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits identified in Section 12, please let me know how I can refine my request.

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TfL Ref: FOI-0099-1920

Thank you for your email received by Transport for London (TfL) on 8 April 2019.

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

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 to provide a response to question 5 alone, would exceed the cost limit. This is because we would have to manually review over 2,000 private hire operator licenses to determine the method by which they take bookings, i. e. by app and/or phone, email etc. Therefore in combination with some of the other requested information, the time taken to process your whole request would considerably exceed the cost limit.

However, a list of licensed private hire operators is attached for your perusal. I would also refer you to a licence checker on our website where you can find whether a private hire driver, vehicle or operating centre is licensed ( https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/licensing/licence-checker ).

Please note that we do not release the number of vehicles registered with each operator. This information is commercially sensitive and is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section 43(2) of the FOI Act.

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. 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 Transport for London. 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 TfL.

Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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

Yours sincerely

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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