Dear TfL, under the Freedom of Information Act, please tell me how many injuries have been brought to your attention where passengers have fallen and sustained injuries when they’ve been unaware that the bus was ready to move from the bus stop. Also how many requests have you received from passengers to raise awareness of this. Also what health & safety assessments has TfL undertaken on the effects of constant announcements on captive passengers. Thank you.

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Our ref: FOI-3010-1718/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 19 January 2018 asking for information relating to the 'Please hold on’ iBus announcement.

Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy. Unfortunately we do not hold the specific information you require.

Trips and falls incidents on buses are recorded at the time of the incident, however, because of the broad range captured we do not sub categorise them by the circumstances that they may have occurred. This is also because the bus companies that operate these services on our behalf will follow them up with investigations later to understand how they occurred. The incidents are reported in our quarterly statistics on the bus network, and show the details of injuries reported to us by bus operators on the network, locations and dates. This can be viewed at https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/publications-and-reports/bus-safety-data#on-this-page-0. We do know from discussions with bus operators who investigate the incidents, that not holding on is often a primary cause for trips and falls, and an area where more focus is required.

Partly because of this, we include mitigations like ‘smoothness of ride’ in bus driver training and we check for it in Driver Quality Monitoring and Mystery Traveller Surveys.

The message “please hold-on while the bus is moving’’ is another step in this process, with the timing and wording recently revised to help the public travel as safely as possible at all times, not just when the bus moves away from a stop. The trial has not been prompted by passengers raising awareness of trips and falls issues but by our desire to see if it can make the network safer. This is a trial and simply an additional message on the iBus system which is well established so does not entail health and safety assessments. This trial will come to an end in mid-February where we will review the outcome and make decisions on how we move forward.

If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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