I am writing to you to ask TfL about three question for an analysis, which is a part of my bachelor thesis "Development of ticketing systems for public transportation". I would like to analyse changes in this field in Europe through last years, so I am collecting basic figures about ticketing systems in transport systems of selected Europe agglomerations. I would be really grateful if you could answer on these topics about ticketing system of TfL in London: The extent of the tickets sales network – number of vending machines, info and service points, kiosks and newsagent’s partners. Share of transaction costs for each sales channel (online, mobile app, vending machines, info points, kiosks, SMS etc.) [%] Number of sold tickets – by the type of sales channel (online, vending machines, kiosks) or by the type of ticket (Single / Day / x-Day / Monthly / Annual ) I clearly understand that some of these data could be seen as confidential. In that case, please try to provide leastwise more simple figures, for example only share of different types of tickets instead of clear numbers of their sales. If some of this information is published on public website, please just give me a link.

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TfL Ref: FOI-1246-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London on 1^st July 2019 asking for information about our ticketing systems.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.

Specifically you asked:

“I would be really grateful if you could answer on these topics about ticketing system of TfL in London:

The extent of the tickets sales network – number of vending machines, info and service points, kiosks and newsagent’s partners.

Share of transaction costs for each sales channel (online, mobile app, vending machines, info points, kiosks, SMS etc.) [%]

Number of sold tickets – by the type of sales channel (online, vending machines, kiosks) or by the type of ticket (Single / Day / x-Day / Monthly / Annual).”

I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. However, we estimate that to provide it 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. Note that TfL covers a wide variety of different transport modes (including the London Underground, London Overground, TfL Rail, buses, trams, Docklands Light Railway, cycle hire and river boat services) and there is no single source of information to answer your question, for example, on the number of vending machines, information and service points across the entire network. In order to answer such questions we would need to source and collate information from colleagues across TfL, which we estimate could only be achieved at disproportionate cost.

In order to bring your request within the costs threshold you may wish to consider narrowing or reframing its scope, to focus on the information that is of most importance to you.

However, that said, you should note that we publish a large amount of information and data on our website. You may wish to review the information that can be found there before refining your request. The TfL website can be found here:

https://tfl.gov.uk/

You may especially be interested in the following pages:

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/open-data-users/our-open-data - provides our TfL data feeds and guidelines for using them;

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/oyster-card - provides data on Oyster cards, including how many cards have been used, how much money is on Oyster cards, and sales of Oyster cards by different types of outlet;

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/ticket-system-performance - provides data on ticket system performance;

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/contactless-payment - provides data on contactless payments;

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/fares-and-ticketing - provides various reports and items of research on ticketing;

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information - provides responses to previous Freedom of Information requests, which can be searched by keyword (so, for example, a search on the word “machine” will provide previous responses on ticket machines such as this one: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information/foi-request-detail?referenceId=FOI-0258-1920).

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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