Request ID: FOI-0990-2324 Date published: 19 July 2023
You asked
Hello,
I have had numerous instances of bus drivers failing to give way to me as a pedestrian when I am waiting to cross a road at a junction, as they have been required to do under the Highway Code for more than a year. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, please provide me with all information you and the bus companies acting as your agents hold regarding policies in Highway Code compliance, training given to bus drivers on the Highway Code and how compliance with the Highway Code is monitored and enforced, including details of complaints received and enforcement action taken.
Thank you.
We answered
TfL Ref: FOI-0990-2324
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 29th June 2023 asking for information about bus driver training.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
Specifically you asked:
“I have had numerous instances of bus drivers failing to give way to me as a pedestrian when I am waiting to cross a road at a junction, as they have been required to do under the Highway Code for more than a year. In accordance with the Freedom of Information Act, please provide me with all information you and the bus companies acting as your agents hold regarding policies in Highway Code compliance, training given to bus drivers on the Highway Code and how compliance with the Highway Code is monitored and enforced, including details of complaints received and enforcement action taken.”
London's bus services are operated by private bus companies on behalf of TfL, and those companies employ their drivers directly. Bus drivers receive the majority of their training from those bus operators in line with DVSA (Driver and Vehicle Standards Agency) standards. TfL supplement this training with a City and Guilds Level 2 qualification which is undertaken by all new bus drivers and by designing “Certificate of Professional Competence” (CPC) courses, which in the past have included courses on Customer Service and Safety, and we will be launching an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion course late this year. With regard to the specific issue you highlight, please find attached a copy of the Driver Notice provided to all bus operators in advance of the changes to the Highway Code from 29 January 2022. Bus operators might also have produced their own material for their staff. TfL does not hold that information.
In regard to your question about the number of complaints received, I am afriad that it is not possible to provide this information within the costs limit for responding to FOI cases, as set out under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act. Under section 12, TfL is not required to provide information if it would cost more than £450 to determine if that information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract it from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work.
In this instance the exemption applies because the information has not been collated before, and there is no quick or efficient way of doing so. There is no keyword used for logging complaints specifically about compliance with the Highway Code, and no automated way of sourcing this data. Rather, such complaints would likely be logged as “poor/dangerous driving”; “accidents/safety concerns”, or “staff complaint”, but this would include any other type of complaint that would fit the same descriptions. Colleagues in our Customer Services team have found over 16,000 such cases received by TfL in the last year. The only way to find those that are about non-compliance with the Highway Code would be to review them all individually. Given the numbers involved, this is not possible within the costs limit.
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.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
