Details of train surfers found riding on your trains
Request ID: FOI-0900-2223 Date published: 28 July 2022
You asked
I am looking for a list of all reported instances of train surfers (people riding on the outsides of trains such as on the roof or hanging on to the back) on your trains.
On the list please include the following:
• The date of the incident (and the time too if you also hold this).
• The location of the incident (either the station or location that they were seen or the stations or locations that they rode between).
• The class or stock of train that they surfed.
• Whether or not you reported them to the police for prosecution.
Preferably i would like this information for the period of the past ten years but if that is not possible (like if you do not hold information from that long ago or it would be too expensive or time consuming to obtain) than just provide me with information as fat back as you are able to go.
Please include all modes, London Underground, London Overground, TFL Rail, Elizabeth Line, Docklands Light Railway, Croydon Tramlink, Cable Car, in this data.
Additionally if you hold details like what i requested for above of bus surfers too could you also provide that. I have seen videos online of bus surfers on London Buses so this seems to happen as well. However i am not sure whether you would hold this information or only the bus operator would hold it.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0900-2223
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 16 July 2022, asking for information about instances of train surfers on TfL trains and buses.
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. 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 appropriate cost limit to provide a response to your current request. Firstly, there is no central incident reporting system across all the areas that you have requested the incident data for. For some modes, retrieving older data would require going back to the previous service provider’s records to carry out a manual trawl of their incident data to determine which were concerning train surfing incidents. Some records were held on paper based systems so we would need to visit our physical archives and retrieve the incident reports for the period in question. In respect of Trams and DLR, "train surfing" is not a specific category and therefore it would be difficult to answer your request, without having to review individual incidents. Please note we do not hold information on whether the person was prosecuted or not if they are caught. I would recommend you contact the British Transport Police (BTP) for this information. 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 also consider limiting your request to a shorter period of time, geographical area or fewer 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 Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
