Request ID: FOI-1199-2122 Date published: 24 September 2021
You asked
F/on from FOI-0992
Dear Sir
Could you please reduce this request to the 3 months from the 01/04/2020 and apply the same question
Can you tell me whether TFL are aware or have had any reports where the loop hearing system doesn't work or is faulty in the following taxis
LEVC TXe
Nissan Dynamo
TX4
Mercedes VITO
I presume this reduces the number of complaints to check to just over 400 and gives you just under 3 minutes to scan each complaint (on the cost analysis of 18 hours at £25 per hour) which is adequate time.
If you consider this still exceeds the cost limit, can you please reduce the request further to 2 months from the 01/04/2020 and apply the same question?
Many thanks
We answered
Our ref: FOI-1199-2122/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 7 August 2021 asking for further information about hearing loops in taxis.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
I can confirm we do hold the information you require, however, we are refusing your request under section 14(1) of the Act as we consider that providing the requested information would place an unreasonable burden on us. Our principal duty is to provide an effective transport service for London and we consider that answering this request would represent a disproportionate effort. It would be a significant distraction from our work managing the TfL network, requiring re-allocation of already limited resources and placing an unacceptable burden on a small number of personnel. We do wish to clarify that whilst we consider that your request falls under section 14(1) of the FOI Act, this does not reflect a conclusion that it has been your intention to deliberately place an undue burden on our resources.
The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) guidance states that one of the indicators of a request which may fall under section 14(1) is that it “appears to be part of a completely random approach, lacks any clear focus, or seems to have been solely designed for the purpose of ‘fishing’ for information without any idea of what might be revealed.”
The ICO guidance provides the following examples of a ‘fishing expedition’ request which may fall under section 14(1) if it:
- Imposes a burden by obliging the authority to sift through a substantial volume of information to isolate and extract the relevant details;
- Encompasses information which is only of limited value because of the wide scope of the request;
- Creates a burden by requiring the authority to spend a considerable amount of time considering any exemptions and redactions. Our view is that all three of these examples apply in this instance. We have previously advised you that our Taxi & Private Hire team is not aware of any recurring problems or complaints regarding hearing loop systems installed in London taxis. Any such complaints received by our Customer Services would have been recorded under the broad category of ‘Taxi & Private Hire Vehicles’, and in order to see if any of these related to a hearing loop within a taxi, we would need to manually look at each complaint. Searching through a significant volume of complaints, albeit over a shorter time period, would still be a significant task. We consider the burden of searching for any complaints on this subject would be disproportionate to the benefit of providing it, and may not produce a single result. If you are aware of any issues or faults with the hearing loop system in taxis, please provide us with further information and we will be happy to look into this further. 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
