Our Ref:         FOI-1412-2021

Thank you for your request received on 23 October 2020 asking for information about station closures due to issues with social distancing.

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 hold some of the information you require. You asked:

• How many times London Underground stations have been forced to close due to an inability to adhere to social distancing within the station, since 23 March 2020?

There have been zero occasions when London Underground stations have had to completely close due to being unable to maintain social distancing since 23 March 2020.

• How many times London Underground staff have requested the assistance of the British Transport Police regarding passengers unwilling to adhere to social distancing or unwilling to wear a face covering?

We do not hold this information as we do not record this data in a consistent way. Please contact the British Transport Police (BTP) directly for this information:

https://www.btp.police.uk/about_us/your_right_to_information/freedom_of_information.aspx

• How many passenger complaints have been made about a lack of social distancing on London Underground tube trains or at London Underground stations, since 23 March 2020?

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested 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, 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 cost over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take over 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.

We would have to review all of the complaints received in the requested time period to determine whether they were captured by your request. We are not able to filter on whether the complaints are about the lack of social distancing as this is not a category we use to code complaints. We have done an initial search using the term ‘social distancing’, and since the start of this financial year we have been contacted over 16,000 times. However, in order to determine how many of these are complaints and captured by your requested we would have to review all of the queries received.

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider 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 Transport for London. 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 consider limiting your request to a much shorter period of time, however please note that there are typically over 200 enquiries using the term ‘social distancing’ each week.

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.

If you are considering submitting a further FOI request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Gemma Jacob
Senior FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London

[email protected]