Our Ref:        FOI-2238-2425

Thank you for your request received on 16 October 2024 asking for information about graffiti on the London Underground. 

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. 

Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the FOI (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 over £450 to provide a response to your current request. This is because it is estimated that it would take in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.

We received over one thousand reports annually of graffiti on London Underground trains. We do not record the location of the train that the graffiti or defacement occurred on in a way that is directly reportable so we would need to review each of these incidents to determine what information we hold in relation to the location of each of the vandalism incidents. Graffiti removal is carried out within the overall maintenance programmes managed by our contractors. The costs for removal of graffiti are incorporated into the costs for cleaning and maintenance activities carried out across our network and assets. They are responsible for removing graffiti from our assets which includes bus stations, shelters and stops, traffic signals, structures and signage (owned by TfL or on the TfL Road Network), tunnels, Legible London signs, safety and CCTV cameras, and variable message signs. As a result we do not hold costs specifically relating to the removal of graffiti and defacement, whether that be on a train or elsewhere.  While it can be difficult to fully quantify the financial burden graffiti and other vandalism puts on TfL, and while we have no recent figures, we have previously estimated that it costs millions of pounds per year. Across the wider rail industry, Network Rail have previously estimated an annual outlay of £3.5m which highlights the significant financial burden and disruption felt by train and rail operators because of this criminal activity.

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. To assist you in doing so you may want to take a look at our published responses on this topic by searching for the term ‘graffiti’:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/transparency/freedom-of-information

You may also wish to direct your questions regarding criminal prosecution to the British Transport Police, who may be more readily able to provide the information requested. 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. 

Lastly, please also note that we have avoided releasing information on graffiti in the past as we are very cautious about encouraging copycat vandalism in this manner by releasing any information that makes TfL assets a more attractive target for graffiti. There is a real and ongoing interest in TfL services as a target and that this will only increase if we release information that provides information regarding the prevalence of these incidents and risk creating a perception, however misguided, that our services are in any way accessible for vandalism, or even conversely that our infrastructure is not as frequently targeted and therefore more attractive.

The inevitable outcome of vandalism and criminal damage is disruption to property and subsequent costs to clean and repair. However, in addition to this, vandalism on the London Underground also causes severe disruption to our services through trains being withdrawn from services and/or services being suspended due to trespassers on the line. To summarise, we consider that it is inevitable that the practice of graffiti anywhere on the TfL network has criminal, commercial and health and safety implications. We would like to draw your attention to the following decision notice where these matters have been considered by the Information Commissioner in a related request, which we hope will assist in the consideration of any further request: https://ico.org.uk/media/action-weve-taken/decision-notices/2023/4026983/ic-210387-g5p2.pdf.

In the meantime, if you have any queries or would like to discuss your request, please do not hesitate to contact me.

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

Yours sincerely 

Gemma Jacob

Senior FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

[email protected]