Our ref: FOI-2178-1617

Thank you for your email received on 3 February 2017 asking for information about bus services in Surrey.

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 some of the information you require.

1. Minutes of any meetings of, notes, copies, recordings or records of any meeting and any internal or external correspondence of any Transport for London (TfL) cabinet, committee, sub-committee, executive or employee thereof since January 2016 in so far as the same relate to any proposed reduction of bus services in Surrey.

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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to do this would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.

You have copies of any records relating to any proposed reduction of bus services in Surrey, over a period of more than one year. We have contacted the most likely people to hold such information, but they do not hold the information requested. An email search across the whole of TfL using search terms as broad as ‘bus’ and Surrey would produce an excessive amount of emails, each of which would need to be extracted and manually reviewed to see if they are relevant to your request. This task alone would take in excess of the appropriate limit of 18 hours, but would not include further time taken to search for any other relevant information, such as handwritten or printed documents which may exist.

2. Data as to the usage (including numbers of passengers and revenue derived per journey) of the 465 bus route between Leatherhead and Dorking for the same period.

We do not routinely collect daily figures for bus usage or revenue. The data held is based on Bus Origin Destination Survey (BODS) data which we collect periodically (every 5 years).

On average the usage for this bus route per day between Leatherhead Station and Dorking is around 700 people for the whole day (07:00-19:00 as this is the way in which BODS data is collected)

The current revenue per day of this service between Leatherhead Station and Dorking is - £1,372.

This adds up to about ~£585,000 per annum (this figure includes both directions of service)

3. Equivalent data for any other TfL bus route in Surrey which TfL is, or may be, considering reducing or shutting down (which latter should be identified as such please).

Other routes that were impacted by the changes in funding levels due to the Surrey County Council decision were the 116, 117, 203, 216, 293, 411, 461, 465, 467, and 470, however each route is reviewed independently. We will continue to run services into Surrey as a part of our cross-boundary services, to provide connections into London, and while future reviews may see changes occur we are unable to speculate at this time as the routes are considered on their own merits.

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