TfL Ref: 1873-2223
Thank you for your further request received by us on 29 October 2022 asking for information about savings from curtailments and cuts made to the London Buses network, following your previous request for information, TfL reference: 1593-2223.
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. You asked:
how much TFL has saved as a result of the previous Central London bus review of discontinuing routes 48 and RV1 as well as curtailing routes 45, 67 and 476
We can advise that to locate, extract and collate the necessary data for the purposes of your request, would still exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004, as the same process would apply in order for us to collate the necessary data required to formulate a response, as mentioned in our previous reply to TfL reference 1593-2223. Hence, we would still need to review years of documentation that TfL’s Public Transport Service Planning department produced during this time, which 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 in excess of £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 data you have requested, given that we would need to scrutinise and review a significant volume of material over various timescales to fulfil your request.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider further 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.
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 to your Freedom of Information request until we receive your revised request.
We would like to add that as part of our Central London Bus Review, following a Government requirement for significant savings, TfL has worked to ensure that the bus kilometres removed from the network are in locations that already have a higher provision of buses. Changes to the network were made in areas that are already well served by other routes meaning services would more than meet demand and allow passengers to still make the same journeys, with an additional interchange in some instances. Taking this approach reduces the effect on passengers as much as possible and will allow for investment in outer London where there is a clear need for more buses due to higher demand, whilst ensuring a continued reliable network of routes in central and inner London. Passengers can also make use of the 'Hopper' fare introduced by the Mayor, meaning no extra costs will be incurred by passengers for changing buses within an hour.
In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.
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
Jasmine Howard
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
