FOI request detail

ULEZ

Request ID: FOI-0166-2223
Date published: 01 June 2022

You asked

Under the Freedom of Information Act, please provide me with the following: - The date the ULEZ came into force - The date when drivers started to be asked which day they entered the ULEZ when making a payment online or over the telephone - The number of requests made for refunds since the ULEZ was imposed - The reasons given for requesting a refund - How many refunds have been granted and on what basis - The number of complaints made about your policy not to refund - What stage those complaints progressed to and the outcome - a breakdown of all the complaints made since the ULEZ including the reason for the complaint, whether they were upheld and the reasoning for the final decision - the number of complaints about your online payments system, the reason for the complaint and the outcome

We answered

TfL Ref: FOI-0166-2223
 
Thank you again for your clarified request received by us on 7 May 2022 asking for information about the Ultra-Low Emission Zone (ULEZ).

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 hold some of the information you require. Specifically you asked for:

- The date the ULEZ came into force
- The date when drivers started to be asked which day they entered the ULEZ when making a payment online or over the telephone
- The number of requests made for refunds since the ULEZ was imposed
- The reasons given for requesting a refund
- How many refunds have been granted and on what basis
- The number of complaints made about your policy not to refund
- What stage those complaints progressed to and the outcome
- a breakdown of all the complaints made since the ULEZ including the reason for the complaint, whether they were upheld and the reasoning for the final decision
- the number of complaints about your online payments system, the reason for the complaint and the outcome

I seek information for both refunds requested and made for daily payments and refunds challenging daily payments please.

I am interested in the data from when the scheme expanded last year.

The expansion of the ULEZ went live on 25 October 2021 and the daily charge has been payable from that date.

Unfortunately, to provide the specific information you asked for 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 considerably exceed the aforementioned cost limit to provide a response to your current request.

Since the expansion in October 2021, we’ve received thousands of refund requests for daily payments. In order to obtain the reason for them, we would have to manually review each and every one, as unfortunately there’s no simple way of reporting on this. Similarly with ULEZ complaints, we neither record the reason for the complaint nor the outcome in the way you have requested, therefore we would have to manually go through every individual complaint to find this out.
 
It’s because of this excessive time it would take to manually locate, retrieve and compile the information you asked for, we are applying section 12 exemption to your whole request.  

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. Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, 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.

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 Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

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