Number of dog related attacks on TFL over last 30 years
Request ID: FOI-1314-2122 Date published: 06 October 2021
You asked
Please could I ask how many incidents have been reported across the TfL network involving injuries or attacks to passengers by dogs? Please could you provide the number of annual incidents over the last 30 years? If 30 years exceeds the data limit, please could you provide the maximum number of years possible? Ideally this would be broken down by service (e.g. 10 incidents per year on the Underground, or 10 incidents per year on the Tramlink). Thanks
We answered
TfL Ref: 1314-2122
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 22 September 2021 asking for information about the number of dog-related injuries or attacks there have been across the TfL network.
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. You asked: How many dog-related injuries or attacks there have been across the TfL network (received by email), and how many incidents have been reported across the TfL network involving injuries or attacks to passengers by dogs? Please could you provide the number of annual incidents over the last 30 years? If 30 years exceeds the data limit, please could you provide the maximum number of years possible? Ideally this would be broken down by service (e.g. 10 incidents per year on the Underground, or 10 incidents per year on the Tramlink), (your web request).
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, locating and retrieving it and 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.
We have estimated that it would significantly exceed the appropriate limit to provide a response to your current request. This is because TfL does not collect structured information to identify dog attacks specifically, which have occurred across our transport network in our safety incident or other reporting systems. The only way we could try and extract the information you have asked for would be to search one or more of our databases (for example customer services, safety incidents, legal services and so on), in any free text fields against a keyword of for example, ‘dog’ or ‘attack’ or ‘bit’ which would generate a large number of matches especially over the time period you have requested. Each of these matches would need to be individually and manually reviewed to see if they relate specifically to a dog related attack or injury. This method would be likely to prove unreliable as there would be no guarantee that any incidents reported where a description did not include any of the keywords searched, (for example where a specific breed of dog was entered into the database as opposed the word ‘dog’), would be captured by any search. There is also the potential for any misspelling to produce inaccurate results and it is also worth pointing out that we would only hold information on incidents that have been specifically reported to us which may mean that the data will not reflect the situation accurately.
If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of the organisation. 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 see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Sara Thomas FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
