TfL Ref: 1466-1819

Thank you for your email received by us on 30 August 2018 asking for information about raw iBus route arrival data.

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 the following:

Please could you provide me with the available raw iBus route arrival data which you hold for 2018 in one of tab delimited, csv or XML format. This should include the unique stop reference number(NAPTAN), the trip reference number, the route number, the vehicle reference number and the actual arrival datetime. The actual departure datetime and scheduled arrival and departure datetimes would be helpful if you have this correlated within in the same dataset.

If the volume of data for 2018 is too large to fit compressed onto suitable storage media then I would be happy to accept arrival data for a reduced date window.

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested for all bus routes would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004 due to the considerable volume of data that would need to be extracted to fulfil your 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.

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 such as limiting your request to either a small number of bus routes or days. We can also provide Operated/Lost mileage and EWT/%On Time data aggregated to a day/period/year level for any combination of dates/periods and routes if required.

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 note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised 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