Request ID: FOI-3058-2223 Date published: 17 March 2023
You asked
The Mayor of London makes the claim that toxic air leads to the premature deaths of thousands of Londoners each year and the ULEZ expansion will reduce it.
The Mayor’s office published research peer reviewed by Imperial College London which showed 200,000 high-polluting vehicles are driven regularly in the capital and it asserts that roughly 4,000 Londoners die prematurely each year due to toxic air.
Can you provide the material that you have based the ulez expansion on, along with a mapping of what pollution distribution along outer boroughs are, and the expected distribution of pollution after ulez expansion.
In your data can you highlight the actual and assumed data you have used.
Can you provide details of the cost of ulez compliance and non compliance to households entering the area of ulez.
Can you quantify the cost to the environment of extra car production to meet your scheme, as not everyone will buy a 2nd hand car.
Can you tell me the extra pollution that will be produced if drivers just went a bought a 40 Yr old car and obtained an exemption. What sort of numbers are you estimating in this situation.
What will be the extra pollution of people upgrading due to ulez and buying bigger engine cars which produce more exhaust pollution but are considered compliant. How many extra deaths will that cause and what will be the environmental cost from that?
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-3058-2223 / FOI-3226-2223
Thank you for your requests received on 18 February 2023 and 2 March asking for information about the Ultra-low Emission Zone (ULEZ) expansion and bus pollution.
Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations (EIR) and our information access policy. I can confirm we hold some of the information you require.
Given the extent of the information you are looking for across both of your current requests, we are applying Regulation 12(4)(b) as we believe that the requests are ‘manifestly unreasonable’ because providing the information you have requested would impose unreasonable costs on us and require an unreasonable diversion of resources.
A large amount of data that relates to the questions you have asked has already been published in response to other requests we have received, including the requests you have previously submitted on these topics:
After reviewing the above documents you may wish to consider narrowing and/or focussing the scope of your requests so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract any additional information you are seeking that is not already provided in these documents. There are limits on the time that TfL are required to spend determining whether TfL holds the information you are requesting and the time spent locating, retrieving and extracting it. Therefore 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.
Please note, that 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.
The use of this exception is subject to a public interest test, which requires us to consider whether the public interest in applying the exception outweighs the public interest in disclosure. We recognise that the release of information would promote accountability and transparency in public services and may help address your particular concerns about this issue. However, the time it would take to provide the information you have requested would divert a disproportionate amount of our resources from its core functions and as there is already a large amount of data already published on these matters, on balance we consider that the public interest currently favours the use of the exception.
We will consider your request again, if you are able to narrow its scope so that we can more easily locate, retrieve and extract the information you are seeking.
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
