Freedom of Information request - Fatalities and Injuries On London Underground From Person(s) on the rail line
Request ID: FOI-1023-2021
Date published: 23 September 2020
You asked
Dear Transport for London,
I would like to make a Freedom Of Information request for some statistics pertaining to fatalities and injuries on the London Underground network.
Please provide the following information from 2010 to 2019 (inclusive):
-Every incident where a person or persons were on the tracks of any train platform (excluding staff for legitimate maintenance work). Please include every station on the London Underground Network in the results.
-The time, day, month and year of each incident
-The station where each incident occurred, specifying the line and platform
-The number of persons under a train as a result of each incident
-The number of person(s) injured in each incident
-The number of fatalities resulting from each incident
-The conclusions reached regarding the cause of each incident (i.e. suicide attempt, accident, overcrowding, deliberate act etc.)
-In each incident, did the platform in question have any members of TFL staff present on the platform at the time of the incident?
-In each incident, did the platform in question have any protective barrier between the platform and the tracks?
We answered
Our ref: FOI-1023-2021/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 6 September 2020 asking for information about fatalities and Injuries on London Underground.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. However, 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
You have asked for detailed information on each incident recorded over a ten year period. In order to answer the questions raised we would need to located the incident reporting form for every relevant incident and compile the specific information you have requested (if recorded) to answer your questions. This would easily exceed the appropriate limit. Some of the information would also be exempt from disclosure – for example, whilst we have previously disclosed the details of the line which incidents occurred on, the specific location (station) that person under train incidents occur at is generally considered to be exempt from disclosure in accordance with section 38 and the application of this exemption has previously been upheld by the First Tier Tribunal.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
We have previously disclosed information relating to ‘Person Under Train’ incidents, which is published on our website, and you may find useful:
https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-1823-1920
The impact of current circumstances on TfL’s resources means we are not able to answer FOI requests readily and we ask that you please do not make a request to us at present.
Answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. In any event, please note that our response time will be affected by the current situation.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
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