FOI request detail

Plain Clothed Ticket Inspectors on London Underground Services

Request ID: FOI-2634-1819
Date published: 28 January 2019

You asked

Dear sir/madam, I'd like to know how many times plain-clothed ticket inspectors travelled on London Underground services in the year of 2018, the number of passengers who were stopped by plain-clothed ticket inspectors for not being in possession of valid ticket/pass, and a breakdown of the corresponding action taken. If you could please also provide a total sum of money that was gained from issued PFN's by plain-clothed ticket inspectors, that would be great. If this latter request is too specific, then I am happy for you to provide the total sum of money that was gained from issued PFN's by all ticket inspectors, not just plain-clothed. Please break this information down monthly, and by line - including direction of travel (eastbound/westbound etc). The lines I require are listed below: Bakerloo Line London Overground Central Line Circle Line District Line Hammersmith & City Line Jubilee Line Metropolitan Line Northern Line Piccadilly Line Victoria Line Waterloo and City Line

We answered

Our Ref:          FOI-2634-1819

Thank you for your request received on 8 January 2019 asking for information about plain-clothed ticket inspectors on the London Underground.

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.

Please see below the amount of money collected for all penalty fares in 2018:

 Paid on the Spot (£) Collected Later (£)
January 8,717.00 31,357.60
February 5,653.70 21,439.70
March 8,241.70 30,582.75
April 9,510.00 35,440.65
May 6,275.50 23,612.40
June 8,593.10 30,809.50
July 8,722.00 27,362.75
August 9,638.30 25,327.30
September 5,868.00 24,904.90
October 7,847.50 28,829.10
November 7,111.70 20,963.60
December 3,234.30 7,943.00

Unfortunately, to provide the remaining information you have requested would exceed the ‘appropriate limit’ of £450 set by the Freedom of Information (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 over 18 working hours  to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.

The information regarding whether the Revenue Control Inspector (RCI) was in plain-clothes or in uniform and the line/direction the penalty fare was issued is not recorded centrally. The RCI would document their attire (uniform or plain clothes) in their notebook for a witness statement in prosecution cases. To retrieve that information we would need to check all of the RCI notebooks/witness statements for all of 2018. In order to provide the information on line/direction we would have to cross-reference information that is stored in several different systems in order to identify and extract the requested data. This would then need to be verified for accuracy.

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. If you want to refine your request or make a Freedom of Information Act request in future, please bear in mind that the Freedom of Information Act allows you to request recorded information held by Transport for London. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can, specifying the types of document that you are looking for. You might also consider limiting your request to a particular period of time, geographical area or specific departments of TfL.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does 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.

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 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]

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