TfL Ref: 1377-1920

Thank you for your email received by us on 22 July 2019 asking for information about complaints or reports we have received during the last three years regarding harassment or assault on trains or buses.

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

how many complaints or reports TFL have received over the pass three years regarding harassment or assault on your trains or buses.

Transport for London (TfL) publishes crime and incident statistics providing a summary of crime and antisocial behaviour on the buses and trains that we operate on a quarterly basis here: https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/crime-and-incident-bulletins

The Metropolitan Police and British Transport Police can also be referred to for information on criminal offences via the following links to their websites:

https://www.ukcrimestats.com/Police_Force/Metropolitan_Police_Service

https://crimemaps.btp.police.uk/

Our customer contact centre also records instances when our customers have reported incidents directly to us. Based on the database categories used to search for the information you have requested under ‘Assault’ or ‘Sexual Harassment’ - as we do not have solely a ‘Harassment’ category - together with the type of contact consisting of ‘Complaint’ or ‘Safety issues and incidents’, a total of 579 incidents were recorded by the contact centre under ‘Assault’ and 79 were coded under ‘sexual harassment’ from 2 June 2017 to 9 August 2019. This is the period of time we are able to report upon due to a previous change in reporting systems.

However, to provide the breakdown between trains and buses which you have requested would unfortunately 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, 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.

This is because the information you are seeking is not readily available in the specified format. We are unable to establish whether the alleged incident took place for example, on a train platform or bus stop or on board the mode in question without manually reviewing each of the 658 incidents recorded. Upon identifying those relevant to your request, each would need to be individually extracted and collated, with the necessary personal data redacted for the purposes of your request.

It is also worth noting that our database classifies the information received based on the comments of a correspondent, rather than a statement confirming that an incident has actually occurred. Therefore any such result could not be considered completely accurate given that a communication could relate to an alleged assault/harassment by other passengers as opposed to an incident involving a member of our staff in any given scenario.

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

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.

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