Dear Sir / Madam I would like to request the following data under the Freedom of Information Act. Please could you provide for each year of the previous 5 years the number of: · PCNs Issued per year broken down by higher and lower tier · PCNs Paid at the discounted level broken down by higher and lower tier penalties · PCNs paid at the full level broken down by higher and lower tier penalties · PCNs Paid after appeal rights exhausted · PCNs with no further action · PCNs cancelled per year · Civil proceedings launched for failure to pay PCN Issued by TFL Kind Regards

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Our ref: FOI-1884-1819/GH 

 Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 18 October 2018 asking for information about Penalty Charge Notices (PCNs). I am sorry for the delay in replying. 

 Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. 

 Please could you provide for each year of the previous 5 years the number of: 

 1. PCNs Issued per year broken down by higher and lower tier 

 Higher level penalties apply to contraventions which are considered more serious, such as parking on yellow lines or where an obstruction is caused. Lower level penalties apply generally where parking is permitted but the regulations are contravened, such as overstaying on a pay and display bay. 

 All the penalties issued on the Transport for London Road Network (Red Routes) are issued at the higher rate which is £130, reduced to £65 if paid within 14 days.  

 Congestion Charging penalties are payable at £160, reduced to £80 if paid within 14 days.  

 The table below shows the number of penalties issued per calendar year 

Year	Congestion Charge PCNs	Red Route PCNs
2013	800,503	590,534
2014	863,497	467,120
2015	902,112	427,269
2016	935,573	475,633
2017	805,531	555,335

 

2. PCNs Paid at the discounted level broken down by higher and lower tier penalties 

3. PCNs paid at the full level broken down by higher and lower tier penalties 

4. PCNs Paid after appeal rights exhausted 

 To provide the information you have requested in Questions two-4 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’. 

This information is recorded against the individual PCN record and we are unable to readily run reports on these records. To provide these figures would therefore require us to check each individual PCN record which would exceed the cost limit.  

  5. PCNs with no further action 

6. PCNs cancelled per year 

  For questions five and six, the table below details the number of PCNs cancelled or written off for the PCN issued count in question one. 

Year	Congestion Charge PCNs	Red Route PCNs
2013	136,108	108,886
2014	146,503	89,034
2015	158,520	78,068
2016	81,614	33,619
2017	62,988	32,945

 

 

7. Civil proceedings launched for failure to pay PCN 

 The table below details the number of registrations of debts per calendar year. Please note, there is no direct correlation with the PCN volumes in question one as a debt can be registered on more than one occasion.  

Year	Congestion Charge PCNs	Traffic Enforcement PCNs
2013	124,648	83,357
2014	134,185	65,347
2015	150,633	65,122
2016	167,119	77,898
2017	170,533	89,648

 

 

If this is not the information you are looking for, please do not hesitate to contact me. 

 If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal. 

 Yours sincerely 

 Graham Hurt 

FOI Case Officer 

FOI Case Management Team 

General Counsel 

Transport for London

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