Request ID: FOI-2480-2324 Date published: 26 October 2023
You asked
Please see my email below to the Mayor of London regarding the very frequent unscheduled closures of Holland Park Tube station. I have been advised that you hold the information that I requested in my final paragraph, copied in here:
I would also like to make this an FOI request as to the number and frequency of the closures of Holland Park over the last six months . I would also like to have information on what other tube stations suffer a similar fate and the regularity of their closures. It seems to me that TFL just isn’t functioning properly.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-2480-2324
Thank you for your request received on 12 October 2023 asking for information about London Underground station closures.
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 hold some of the information you require. You asked:
I would also like to make this an FOI request as to the number and frequency of the closures of Holland Park over the last six months. I would also like to have information on what other tube stations suffer a similar fate and the regularity of their closures.
Stations can close for a variety of reasons including staff shortages in addition to other unforeseen customer or infrastructure issues, such as faults with communications equipment, defective trains, fire alarms being maliciously activated, or other customer incidents. We aim to minimise station closures as much as possible and strive to always exhaust all avenues before making the decision to close a station. However, on some occasions it is unavoidable, and due to safety regulations which require some stations to have a minimum number of staff, we are legally obligated to close the station.
We are aware of the inconvenience that station closures can cause to our customers and only close stations as a last resort, and when we do close them we look to provide onward travel advice to customers (usually directing them to the next nearest open station). We are working to improve the situation, measures being taken include recruiting into roles where recruitment had previously been paused due to the pandemic. On the occasions when we are required to close a station, we will keep stations open according to pre-defined priority criteria, e.g. those with better connectivity to the rest of the TfL and National Rail network or step-free access, by redeploying available station staff to these stations.
Above-ground stations are not subject to the same requirements for minimum staff numbers as underground stations and may be kept open when no staff are available. TfL’s Turn Up and Go service for customers remains available at all stations.
The information you have requested has been provided in response to a previous FOI request:
Please note that this data is for all stations on the London Underground network but can be filtered to provide information on the stations you require.
Under section 21 of the Freedom of Information Act, we are not obliged to provide you with information which is reasonably accessible by other means.
Data for September has not been finalised and is subject to change. Data is usually available approximately 28 days from the end of the period, for September this would be mid-November.
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
