Our Ref:         FOI-2459-1920

Thank you for your request received on 13 November 2019 asking for information about racism/racist abuse experienced by London Underground staff.

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.

There were 1.4bn journeys made on the London Underground in 2018/19. Our staff work hard to serve the millions of customers who use our network every day and have the right to go about their work without fear or intimidation. TfL takes workplace violence extremely seriously and we always encourage staff to report any instance of abuse whether physical or non-physical so that preventative measures can be taken, and the strongest penalties brought against offenders.

We have specialist units working with both the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) and British Transport Police (BTP) police services investigating crimes against staff. These special units were established to investigate physical assault and verbal aggression on staff, public order offences and hate crimes, among other offences. The units have significantly encouraged more staff to report incidents, improved the quality of staff assault investigation and feedback, as well as victim care and support.

Please see the chart below showing racially aggravated work-related violence for 2014/15 to 2019/20 (up to 9 November):

Work Related Violence (Racially Aggravated)
2014/15 279
2015/16 230
2016/17 216
2017/18 359
2018/19 357
2019/20 (up to 9 November) 219

Please note that we also publish a quarterly and annual bulletin on crime and antisocial behaviour on the transport network on our website:

https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/crime-and-incident-bulletins

For any crime data not on this bulletin, please contact the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), using the details at www.met.police.uk/foi.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for some reason, please feel free 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]