FOI request detail

Access to Taxi and Bus lanes Policy

Request ID: FOI-2193-2021
Date published: 12 February 2021

You asked

Please could you let me have a copy of the Tfl Public Carriage Office Taxi and Bus Lanes Policy. Thanks.

We answered

TfL Ref: FOI-2193-2021

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 30 January 2021, asking for the TfL Public Carriage Office Taxi and Bus Lanes Policy.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.

However please note that your request is being refused under section 12 of the FOI Act due to the cost limit being exceeded.

To provide a little more context regarding section 12 of the Act, it allows a public authority to refuse to deal with a request where it estimates that it would exceed the appropriate limit to-

(a) either comply with the request in its entirety or;

(b) confirm or deny whether the requested information is held.

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’.

We have conducted several thorough searches of files, folders and operating and management systems but have not been able to locate the document you have requested. We consider it to be likely that we hold the document, but to confirm or deny this would in itself exceed the 18 hour limit. Having exhausted a search across current recording systems it is probable that, given the age of the document, it is held within a legacy system that we do not have easy access to. Considerable additional resources would need to be expended on searching these legacy systems to locate the information you have requested on top of the work that has already been conducted attempting to locate the document.  

Therefore unfortunately we are unable to locate and collate this information within the cost limit detailed above and so the exemption set out at section 12 applies.

However details of bus lanes and other restrictions, in relation to taxis and private hire vehicles is available on our website at

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/taxis-and-private-hire/parking-information#:~:text=Remember%2C%20only%20licensed%20taxi%20drivers,bus%20lanes%20they%20cannot%20use

If you are considering submitting a further request please think carefully about whether the request is essential at this current time, as answering FOI/EIR requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time may be impacted by the current situation.

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

Yours sincerely

Eva Hextall

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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