TfL Ref: FOI-2229-1617

Thank you for your email received by us on 13 February 2017 asking for information about signed declarations for the installation of aftermarket electronic devices.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our Information Access Policy. I can confirm we do hold the information you require. You asked for:

‘How many Private hire drivers have signed and returned the declaration of consent regarding TFL's document named guidelines for aftermarket electronic devices and equipment in Private hire vehicles?

Also have UBER signed and returned the declaration of consent regarding TfL's document named guidelines for aftermarket electronic devices and equipment in Private hire vehicles?’

Unfortunately, to answer your request will 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.

Any aftermarket electronic device or equipment installed in a private hire vehicle requires a declaration form to be completed, signed and presented at the time of the annual licensing inspection.

This document is associated with the private hire vehicle which can be registered with one or multiple operators. That said, this information can not be readily reported on and would require manually checking the individual records of approximately 80,000 licensed private hire vehicles in order to extract details of the number of vehicle owners who have completed this form.                                                                     

To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking. For example you may wish to reduce the amount of information requested by refining your request to concentrate on matters which are important to you.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does 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. If you have specific questions relating to these topics we may be more easily able to respond to these than to a request for any information held.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Paulina Tuffour
FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London