TfL Refs: 1194-1920, 1195-1920, 1196-1920,1197-1920, 1198-1920, 1199-1920.

Thank you for your requests received by Transport for London (TfL) on 24 July 2019 asking for information about bus route tender specifications for all London Buses routes.

Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. You asked for the following information:

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for routes 1-100.

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for routes 201-300.

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for routes 301-400.

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for routes 101-200.

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for routes 401-500.

I request the most recent bus route tender specification documents for all prefixed routes (A1-X99).

Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. Note that your requests have been aggregated and are being addressed as one, as permitted under section 12(4) of the FOI Act. This section of the Act applies where the requests have been made by one person; are for the same or similar information; where they have been received within any period of 60 consecutive working days, and; where the cost of compliance is being considered.

I can confirm that we hold the requested information. However, to provide it all 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, and then locating, retrieving or 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 – equivalent to 18 hours work. Your requests cover more than six hundred separate routes. To comply with these requests would require the information to be manually sourced at a rate of one route every two minutes, which would therefore exceed the cost-limit, given that we would then need to review each specification to ensure that it is the correct and appropriate one for each route for the purposes of your request.

To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing or reframing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do not have to answer your question if it would require the creation of new information or the provision of a judgement, explanation, advice or opinion that was not already recorded at the time of your request.

Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised requests.

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 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