Our Ref:        FOI-2299-2425

Thank you for your request received on 20 October 2024 asking for information about ‘Do Not Travel’ warnings and Sunday working arrangements on the London Overground and Elizabeth line.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information (FOI) Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we do hold the information you require. You asked:

Please provide me this information separately for London Overground and Elizabeth line services.

1.         Please provide me a spreadsheet in XLSX or ODS format with a list of ‘Do Not Travel’ or equivalent warnings issued for your network in 2023 and 2024 to 2359 20/10/2024.

In the spreadsheet, for each warning, please provide a column with the start date, a column with the end date, a column detailing the area the warning affects, and a column with the reason for the warning being issued.

If possible, an additional column with a broad category for the reason such as ‘staffing’, ‘weather’, ‘strike’ etc. would be much appreciated.

‘Do not travel’ warnings are a specific type of rail industry message used in specific circumstances, and might be issued in response to a major incident such as severe weather or industrial action. However, Transport for London would not use this wording. Where a disruption occurs that results in a line being suspended, we advertise it as either ‘suspended/part suspended’ for unplanned closures or ‘planned/part closure’ for planned engineering work.

Neither London Overground nor the Elizabeth line have issued a ‘do not travel’ message during the period specified.

2.         In a separate spreadsheet, please provide me with information about staffing arrangements on Sundays vs the rest of the week.

Specifically, please provide the following information separately for a. train drivers and b. guards/conductors, broken down by depot or base, as of 20/10/2024:

i.          Total staff at depot or base for each staff type.

ii.          The number of this staff type who are contracted to work Saturday as part of the working week, as opposed to overtime.

iii.         The number of this staff type who are contracted to work Sunday as part of the working week, as opposed to overtime.

Please find the requested information in the attached spreadsheets.

Please note that London Overground and Elizabeth line trains are driver only operated, and we do not provide guards or have equivalent/similar roles. The attached spreadsheet provides the total number of drivers based at each depot.

Drivers are contracted to work on all seven days of the week at all depots. On Sundays we have a maximum number of drivers that can be rostered on duty. There are a few exceptions to this. For example, at Ilford and Old Oak Common depots there are a small number of drivers who are not contracted to work on Sundays. This is because these drivers have flexible working agreements. We also have some part-time train drivers.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, 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]