Request ID: FOI-2587-2122 Date published: 04 March 2022
You asked
Dear Transport for London,
Under the Freedom Of Information Act 2000 you are being requested to please provide me with the following information regarding your Help Points at your stations:
• 1. Please provide me with a full list of all Help Points at your stations that you manage (at all London Underground and London Overground and TFL Rail and Docklands Light Railway and Croydon Tramlink managed stations) (the list should show the station name and the location of the help point within the station and the machine number of the help point if it has one).
• 2. Who is the manufacturer of your help points?
• 3. Who maintains and repairs your help points?
• 4. Can you please attach a copy of the manual book for your help points?
• 5. Where does the Green "Emergency" top button get connected through to (please provide the name of the company that answers (if it is not you) and the location (building name or office name where they are based and at least the city or town and county and country they are based in) of the people who are answering)?
• 6. Where does the Blue "Information" bottom button get connected through to (please provide the name of the company that answers (if it is not you) and the location (building name or office name where they are based and at least the city or town and county and country they are based in) of the people who are answering)?
I thank you for your assistance with answering my FOI request.
We answered
TfL Ref: 2587-2122
Thank you for your request received by us on 7 February 2022 asking for information about Help Points at all stations managed by Transport for London (TfL).
Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. You asked for:
a full list of all Help Points at your stations that you manage (at all London Underground and London Overground and TFL Rail and Docklands Light Railway and Croydon Tramlink managed stations)
(the list should show the station name and the location of the help point within the station and the machine number of the help point if it has one).
• 2. Who is the manufacturer of your help points?
• 3. Who maintains and repairs your help points?
• 4. Can you please attach a copy of the manual book for your help points?
• 5. Where does the Green "Emergency" top button get connected through to (please provide the name of the company that answers (if it is not you) and the location (building name or office name where they are based and at least the city or town and county and country they are based in) of the people who are answering)?
• 6. Where does the Blue "Information" bottom button get connected through to (please provide the name of the company that answers (if it is not you) and the location (building name or office name where they are based and at least the city or town and county and country they are based in) of the people who are answering)?
Unfortunately, to provide the information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (Appropriate Limit and Fees) Regulations 2004. This is in specific regard to providing every machine number and its location detail within each station managed by Transport for London; bearing in mind there are 272 London Underground stations, in addition to needing to retrieve this data for all of the other rail networks managed by TfL. 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.
For the most part, the information to answer your questions is not held centrally. The only way to source it would be to obtain data from local level. Again, given there are 272 London Underground stations on the network, with multiple platforms and Help Points, as well as those located in the TfL Rail, London Overground, Docklands Light Railway and Croydon Tramlink stations to consider. Hence we do not believe it would be possible to source all of the information you require within the costs limit.
To help bring the cost of responding to your request within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider narrowing its scope by excluding ‘the location of the help point within the station and the machine number of the help point’ for every network managed by TfL so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the remainder of the information you are seeking.
Please note that we will not be taking further action until we receive your revised request.
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 as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.
Yours sincerely
Jasmine Howard FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
