This request is for specific information relating to a contract between TFL and the company Kantar TNS. I have spoken to representatives of Kantar TNS who described the contract to me variously as "Ticketers Survey" and "Tiqs". If that doesn't suffice to identify the contract, the following is a description of how I came personally encountered it as a TFL customer. I was aboard a southbound London Overground train at 9.30am this morning between Highbury and Islington/Dalston Junction and West Croydon, whereupon two staff of Kantar TNS asked all customers in turn to see their Oyster card/payment card/ticket, before asking several further questions, including the beginning and end points of their journey. These questions were purportedly to confirm that the passenger has a valid ticket for their entire journey. Each Kantar staff member carried a small blue piece of equipment a little larger than a smartphone to 'read' Oyster cards, as well as a tablet. Please provide the following information about this contract between TFL and Kantar TNS: 1. What is the total value of this contract between TFL and Kantar TNS in pounds sterling? 2. What is the period of operation of the contract? 3. How many hours of onboard checks (in the manner described above) are provided by Kantar TNS as part of the contract? Please provide this information as both 'number of ticket checks within a given period', and also 'number of hours of labour dedicated to ticket checks by Kantar TNS staff aboard the TFL network within a given period'. 4. What customer information is processed by Kantar TNS as part of the contract? 5. What customer information is held by Kantar TNS as part of the contract? 6. What provisions has TFL put in place to ensure that Kantar TNS do not store customer information and/or share the information with other parties, independently of TFL? 7. What powers of enforcement do Kantar TNS whilst practically undertaking the contract? For instance, if a customer refused to show their Oyster card/payment card/ticket, what steps have the Kantar TNS staff been instructed to take? 8. Are the Kantar TNS staff instructed to carry any literature or documents with them to confirm their authority and legal legitimacy as contractors of TFL and quasi-law enforcement officials? If so, please provide the title and any other information that would enable other staff and departments within TFL to identify and retrieve these documents and information. 9. What is TFL policy for dealing with disputes and customer complaints made against Kantar TNS staff in their role as contractors of TFL? Is this different from TFL policy for dealing with customer complaints made against its own staff? If so, in what ways? Finally, to put the contract into context within TFL's wider operations: 9. What does TFL believe the current total revenue lost due to customers evading ticket charges? Please provide the most recent data and please state the period the figure encompasses. Please detail how the figure is calculated. 10. Does TFL plan to undertake onboard ticket inspections with TFL (non-contracted) staff in the future? If so, what is the ratio of all on-board ticket inspections will be undertaken by TFL staff, versus ticket inspections conducted by contracted staff.

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Thank you for your email received by us on 11 August 2017 asking for information about the contract we have with Kantar TNS for conducting the Ticketless Travel Survey on our services.

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 some of the information you require. Your request is as follows:

I have spoken to representatives of Kantar TNS who described the contract to me variously as "Ticketers Survey" and "Tiqs". If that doesn't suffice to identify the contract, the following is a description of how I came personally encountered it as a TFL customer. I was aboard a southbound London Overground train at 9.30am this morning between Highbury and Islington/Dalston Junction and West Croydon, whereupon two staff of Kantar TNS asked all customers in turn to see their Oyster card/payment card/ticket, before asking several further questions, including the beginning and end points of their journey. These questions were purportedly to confirm that the passenger has a valid ticket for their entire journey. Each Kantar staff member carried a small blue piece of equipment a little larger than a smartphone to 'read' Oyster cards, as well as a tablet.

Please provide the following information about this contract between TFL and Kantar TNS:

1. What is the total value of this contract between TFL and Kantar TNS in pounds sterling?

Based on the description provided, the contract that you are referring to is the Ticketless Travel Survey and the total value of this contact is £1,724,525.

2. What is the period of operation of the contract?

The contract has a duration of five years and provides quarterly ticketless travel surveys on London Overground, TfL Rail/the Elizabeth Line and London Tramlink services.

3. How many hours of onboard checks (in the manner described above) are provided by Kantar TNS as part of the contract? Please provide this information as both 'number of ticket checks within a given period',

The number of successful interviews conducted by Kantar TNS staff during the period from April 2017 to June 2017 is listed below:

· London Overground: 30,974;
· TfL Rail: 13,095;
· Trams: 2,747.

and also 'number of hours of labour dedicated to ticket checks by Kantar TNS staff aboard the TFL network within a given period'.

TfL does not hold this information. The data on the number of hours labour dedicated to the checks is held by Kantar TNS rather than TfL itself. However, in accordance with the FOI Act we are not obliged to supply this information as it is subject to a statutory exemption to the right of access to information under section S43(2) prejudice to commercial interests.

This data could be used by other parties to make judgements as to how they cost their surveys when bidding for contracts to conduct passenger surveys. Kantar TNS are therefore unwilling to share this data on the grounds that it is commercially confidential. Releasing such details in the public domain would be likely to affect Kantar TNS’ competitive advantage as it could be used by other parties to make judgements as to how they cost their surveys when bidding for contracts to conduct passenger surveys.

Whilst we recognise that there will be a level of interest given the subject matter, we consider that this disclosure could damage our ability to engage with suppliers in the future.

The use of this exemption is subject to an assessment of the public interest in relation to the disclosure of the information concerned. In this instance, factors in favour of disclosure, such as the general public interest in transparency and openness are outweighed by the potential damage to the effective operation of the bidding process. Disclosure would therefore be likely to prejudice TfL’s ability to obtain best value from its procurement process, leading to increases in the cost to the public, either through taxation or increased fares, and Kantar TNSs ability to compete on a level playing field with other companies. There are a limited number of companies able to bid for such contracts and Kantar TNS are likely to find themselves competing for similar contracts in the future. In this instance we consider that the public interest lies in obtaining the best value from the market and for the public purse.

TfL recognises the need for openness and transparency by public authorities, but in this instance as disclosure of this information would be likely to prejudice TfL’s ability to obtain best value from its procurement process and Kantar TNS’ ability to compete with other companies, it is considered that the public interest favours the use of the exemption.

4.What customer information is processed by Kantar TNS as part of the contract?

The survey collects data on an anonymous basis. The results of the interviews are coded onto a tablet computer but no information is collected regarding the identity of an interviewee. The data collected during the interview process and subsequently processed by Kantar TNS are provided below:

· Date of interview;

· Time of interview;

· Day of week of interview;

· Line of route where interview took place;

· Station where the interviewee started their journey on the line of route concerned;

· Station where the interviewee finished their journey on the line of route concerned;

· Whether the interviewee was an adult or a child;

· Ticket type (for example. Paper, Oyster PAYG and so on) held by the interviewee;

· Validity of the ticket held by the interviewee. Interviewees travelling without a ticket are recorded as such;

· Reason for invalidity if the ticket held by the interviewee is invalid. In addition, the reason why the interviewee holds no ticket if applicable;

· At stations where there is an interchange with other rail services, the train operating company used by the interviewee prior to using the service at which the interview took place is recorded, where an interchange
  has occurred;

· Ultimate origin station of an interviewee where they have interchanged from another rail service to use the service on which the interview took place.

The interviewers use hand held devices called MOVie readers to confirm the ticket types held on non-paper tickets such as an Oyster card and their validity. As the MOVies do not store information on these inspections this information cannot be recorded nor processed by Kantar TNS.

5. What customer information is held by Kantar TNS as part of the contract?

6.What provisions has TFL put in place to ensure that Kantar TNS do not store customer information and/or share the information with other parties, independently of TFL?

As mentioned in our response to Question 4, only Kantar TNS holds the anonymous information for each interview. Therefore no personally identifiable customer information is stored by Kantar TNS, only non- identifiable information. Only passenger journey information is collected to report back to us, which is confidential to TfL and cannot be released independently of this organisation.

7. What powers of enforcement do Kantar TNS whilst practically undertaking the contract? For instance, if a customer refused to show their Oyster card/payment card/ticket, what steps have the Kantar TNS staff been instructed to take?

I can advise that Kantar TNS has no powers of enforcement when undertaking the survey. If customers refuse to participate then the interview is terminated without any information being collected. The fieldwork teams do attempt to persuade reluctant interviewees to participate by stating that they will suffer no penalty as a result of participation but if such persuasion is unsuccessful then the interview is always terminated. There is no obligation on the part of the customer to participate.

8.Are the Kantar TNS staff instructed to carry any literature or documents with them to confirm their authority and legal legitimacy as contractors of TFL and quasi-law enforcement officials?

Yes, Kantar TNS staff do carry literature with them to confirm their authority.

The survey has no legal status from an enforcement perspective as the objective of the survey is not to enforce penalties for fraudulent travel. Rather the purpose of the survey is to obtain an objective and independent measure of the amount of fraudulent travel being undertaken on the networks covered.

If so, please provide the title and any other information that would enable other staff and departments within TFL to identify and retrieve these documents and information.

A sample of a letter carried by staff can be found attached. Please note that some information has been withheld from the sample letter in accordance with s40(2) of the FOI Act. This is because disclosure of this personal data would be a breach of the DPA, specifically the first principle of the DPA which requires all processing of personal data to be fair and lawful. It would not be fair to disclose this personal information when the individuals have no expectation it would be disclosed and TfL has not satisfied one of the conditions of Schedule 2 of the Data Protection Act which would make the processing ‘fair’.

9. What is TFL policy for dealing with disputes and customer complaints made against Kantar TNS staff in their role as contractors of TFL? Is this different from TFL policy for dealing with customer complaints made against its own staff? If so, in what ways?

If a complaint is received it is normally routed through our Customer Contact Centre who will then contact the person responsible of managing the survey within TfL. Any complaints are then passed to Kantar TNS to address with the surveyor concerned and report back on outcomes to TfL. Such outcomes would then be reported back to the complainant. The management of the survey teams is the responsibility of Kantar TNS rather than TfL. TfL cannot require a specific penalty to be imposed for misconduct, but we would account for poor performance in this area when letting future contracts of this type, as we expect all fieldwork to be conducted to a high professional standard.

Finally, to put the contract into context within TFL's wider operations:

10. What does TFL believe the current total revenue lost due to customers evading ticket charges? Please provide the most recent data and please state the period the figure encompasses. Please detail how the figure is calculated.

The Ticketless Travel Survey does not measure the volume of revenue lost. Rather it measures the percentage of journeys made without a valid ticket. The most recent data available from the survey covers the period from April to June 2017 inclusive. The percentage of journeys made without a valid ticket during this period was as follows:

· London Overground: 1.67%;
· TfL Rail – 0.98%;
· Trams – 3.69%.

11. Does TFL plan to undertake onboard ticket inspections with TFL (non-contracted) staff in the future? If so, what is the ratio of all on-board ticket inspections will be undertaken by TFL staff, versus ticket inspections conducted by contracted staff.

TfL plans to continue the current process of undertaking on board ticket inspections for the Ticketless Travel Survey using contractor staff of the foreseeable future.

The ratio referred to above cannot be calculated for  surveys undertaken on TfL Rail or London Overground services as the operators of those route - MTRC and Arriva Rail London respectively, do not hold records of the volume of on board ticket inspections undertaken by their Revenue Protection Inspectors.

Circa 346,000 on board ticket inspections were undertaken on Tramlink services during the period from 1 April 2017 to 24 June 2017 by staff employed by our operator, Tramtrack Croydon Ltd. This compares to 2,747 on board ticket inspections conducted by Kantar TNS staff for the Ticketless Travel Survey; a ratio of 346,000/2,747 = 126.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, 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

Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
Information Governance
Transport For London

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