Request ID: FOI-0241-2223 Date published: 30 May 2022
You asked
- How many football related incidents of violence or alleged violence have taken place on trains or platforms. This should include people believed to be travelling to or from football matches.
- How many incidents of violence or alleged violence have taken place on trains or platforms. This should cover incidents with no apparent link to football.
- How many football related incidents of aggression or alleged aggression have taken place on trains or platforms. This should include people believed to be travelling to or from football matches.
- How many incidents of aggression or alleged aggression have taken place on trains or platforms. This should cover incidents with no apparent link to football.
- How many football related incidents of criminal damage or alleged criminal damage have taken place on trains or platforms. This should include people believed to be travelling to or from football matches.
- How many incidents violence or alleged violence have taken place on trains or platforms. This should cover incidents with no apparent link to football.
- Details of the costs generated by any of the above specified incidents.
- Details an minutes of any meetings in which discussion included the impact of passengers travelling to and from football matches.
- Details of any proposed or existing strategies to manage the impact of passengers traveling to and from football matches/
I would like this data to cover the time period 2010 to present. I would prefer the information in monthly figures if you have them. Otherwise quarterly or annual figures will suffice. I would like to receive the information in electronic format as a CSV or Excel file.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0241-2223
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5 May 2022, asking for information about violent and football related incidents on TfL trains and platforms.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy.
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 considerably exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your request.
The search term ‘football’ unfortunately brings up all manner of results, from balls that have been lost on the live track and are in need of retrieving, to someone being described as wearing a football shirt. Separating out the incidents of interest from those that just happen to have a tangential reference to football would have to be done manually and therefore be excessively time consuming. We would, for example, need to cross-reference times and dates of incidents with the times and dates of every single football match in the last 12 years – potentially across all leagues and competitions. To further locate other details relating to such incidents, would of course increase the processing time required to complete your request.
I would recommend you try to source the information you are looking for from the police. We fund officers across the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), British Transport Police (BTP) and the City of London Police (CoLP). They police TfL’s transport network to tackle crime and antisocial behaviour.They might hold the full circumstances behind such incidents.
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 might consider limiting your request to a shorter period of time or geographical area.
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
