Dear Transport for London, Please kindly provide statistics on the number of signalling failures on the London underground by year since 2010. Please also provide information on the number of failures by line in this time period. If it is not possible to provide the information requested due to the information exceeding the cost of compliance limits, please provide advice and assistance as to how I can refine my request. I look forward to receiving your response within 20 working days. If you need any further clarification, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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TfL Ref: FOI-1070-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 11^th July 2019 asking for information about signal failures on the London Underground.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require.

Specifically you asked:

“Please kindly provide statistics on the number of signalling failures on the London underground by year since 2010. Please also provide information on the number of failures by line in this time period.”

The requested information is shown in the tables below, to the end of period 3 (22^nd June 2019).

Table 1: Signals Incidents by Year:

Financial Year	Signals Incidents
2010-11	2,553
2011-12	3,111
2012-13	2,629
2013-14	2,239
2014-15	2,220
2015-16	1,723
2016-17	1,876
2017-18	1,992
2018-19	1,706
2019-20 (Until P3)	326

Table 2 Signals Incidents by Line 2010/11 – Period 3 2019/20:

Line	Signals Incidents
Bakerloo	744
C&H	1,474
Central	2,571
District	4,013
Jubilee	3,991
Metropolitan	2,753
Northern	1,344
Piccadilly	2,403
Victoria	855
Waterloo & City	227

Note that we communicate delays to customers before they enter platforms by making public address announcements in the ticket hall areas and on platforms, displaying delays on electronic service update boards in ticket hall areas, writing on manual service update boards and free-standing general information boards, as well as via TfL’s website and our open data feeds. We also display delays on the dot matrix indicators (the illuminated black indicators on platforms). Under a major programme of modernisation, work has begun to install a state-of-the-art signalling system across the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. This will allow us to run trains closer together and will see reliability, frequency and journey time improvements across all four lines by 2023. The combination of new S-Stock trains and the new signalling system will see capacity increases of 33% across all four lines.

As part of our recent organisational change, a team whose sole focus is working on signalling issues has been created. We will continue to work on maintenance across many different aspects of ensuring reliability on the network, but this team will work to drive reliability and make sure that our customers’ priorities are at the forefront of all work we undertake to improve and maintain signals. We have continued to push for a reduction in ‘Service Affecting Faults’ across the signalling system and last year reduced the amount of signal failures by 12.9 per cent.

More information about signalling and signal failures on the London Underground can be found on our website here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/campaign/tube-improvements/behind-the-scenes/signalling#on-this-page-1

If this is not the information you are looking for please do not hesitate to contact me.

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

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