Please could you provide: (a) The length of time the TfL Congestion Charge payment website has been offline during each of the following periods: Financial year 2012/13 Financial year 2013/14 Financial year 2014/15 Financial year 2015/16 Financial year 2016/17 Current financial year 2017/18 (b) The average time taken to answer phone calls from people wanting to pay the Congestion Charge during each of the following periods: Financial year 2012/13 Financial year 2013/14 Financial year 2014/15 Financial year 2015/16 Financial year 2016/17 Current financial year 2017/18 (c) The longest time taken to answer phone calls from people wanting to pay the Congestion Charge during each of the following periods: Financial year 2012/13 Financial year 2013/14 Financial year 2014/15 Financial year 2015/16 Financial year 2016/17 Current financial year 2017/18 (d) The amount refunded to Congestion Charge customers during each of the following periods: Financial year 2012/13 Financial year 2013/14 Financial year 2014/15 Financial year 2015/16 Financial year 2016/17 Current financial year 2017/18

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TfL Ref: 1789-1718

Thank you for your web request received on 8 October 2017 asking for information about the Congestion Charge payment website.

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 the information you require. Your request and our responses are below.

Length of time TfL Congestion Charge payment website has been offline, and length of time taken to answer Congestion Charge payment phone calls

Please could you provide:

(a) The length of time the TfL Congestion Charge payment website has been offline during each of the following periods:

Financial year 2012/13 – not held

Financial year 2013/14 – not held

Financial year 2014/15 – not held

Financial year 2015/16 – 3 occurrences, totalling 197 minutes

Financial year 2016/17 – 5 occurrences totalling 559 minutes

Current financial year 2017/18 – 5 occurrences, totalling 838 minutes

Please note TfL changed it's Congestion Charge service provider, IT and telephony systems on 26 September 2016, therefore we no longer hold data prior to this date.

(b) The average time taken to answer phone calls from people wanting to pay the Congestion Charge during each of the following periods:

Financial year 2012/13

Financial year 2013/14

Financial year 2014/15

Financial year 2015/16

Financial year 2016/17

Current financial year 2017/18

As advised above TfL changed its Congestion Charge service provider, IT and telephony systems on 26 September 2016. From this date onwards, payment for the Congestion Charge is taken through the voice recognition system and as such there is no call wait time as it connects automatically. The average speed of answer shown for calls after 26 September 2016 are for calls where the customer has dropped out of the Interactive Voice Response (IVR) service and must then wait to speak to a Customer Service Representative.

Average Speed of Answer (in seconds)
	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Jan	13.2	14.9	152.2	132.3	82.8	43.0
Feb	15.6	14.7	140.4	93.3	79.6	199.7
Mar	13.8	18.2	78.6	54.9	71.5	93.3
Apr	22.3	13.5	113.5	67.9	104.0	176.8
May	10.7	18.7	121.1	40.8	98.9	374.7
Jun	14.1	15.0	90.0	125.3	145.0	188.0
Jul	14.4	12.3	85.4	121.1	124.9	267.5
Aug	12.7	27.5	100.1	129.1	84.3	24.2
Sep	15.7	34.6	95.2	138.2	92.3	45.8
Oct	16.2	55.0	134.7	133.2	293.4	-
Nov	12.5	84.6	115.4	48.0	175.9	-
Dec	54.5	116.7	105.3	90.3	252.7	-
Overall	17.5	34.9	111.5	98.1	117.0	164.5

(c) The longest time taken to answer phone calls from people wanting to pay the Congestion Charge during each of the following periods:

Financial year 2012/13

Financial year 2013/14

Financial year 2014/15

Financial year 2015/16

Financial year 2016/17

Current financial year 2017/18

Please see the table below for the longest call wait time (in seconds).  Please note that since the change over on 26 September 2016, the longest wait time has not been measured.

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Jan	2179	316	1989	1222	852	-
Feb	492	352	1685	1189	785	-
Mar	350	373	1523	1233	773	-
Apr	855	402	1285	1665	1244	-
May	363	611	1698	871	1347	-
Jun	442	402	1143	1347	1213	-
Jul	813	362	1329	929	1190	-
Aug	402	717	1333	1102	916	-
Sep	404	491	1080	1354	922	-
Oct	479	606	843	1398	-	-
Nov	552	1446	1239	987	-	-
Dec	1832	1208	897	821	-	-
Overall	2179	1446	1989	1665	1347	-

(d) The amount refunded to Congestion Charge customers during each of the following periods:

Financial year 2012/13

Financial year 2013/14

Financial year 2014/15

Financial year 2015/16

Financial year 2016/17

Current financial year 2017/18

Please find below the monetary value of Congestion Charge Refunds. Data prior to the change of on 26 September 2016 is not longer available. Please note that when we moved to Capita, we took data dumps from the system for certain data sets, but the monetary value of refunds was not one of them. The data no longer exists as the previous systems will have been decommissioned.

	2012	2013	2014	2015	2016	2017
Jan	-	-	-	-	-	15,464.95
Feb	-	-	-	-	-	16,803.70
Mar	-	-	-	-	-	14,900.55
Apr	-	-	-	-	-	7,578.30
May	-	-	-	-	-	5,660.58
Jun	-	-	-	-	-	6,888.75
Jul	-	-	-	-	-	7,616.40
Aug	-	-	-	-	-	9,447.20
Sep	-	-	-	-	795.80	5,467.05
Oct	-	-	-	-	5,265.10	-
Nov	-	-	-	-	3,484.40	-
Dec	-	-	-	-	1,657.50	-
Overall	-	-	-	-	11,202.80	89,827.48

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, 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

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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