Request ID: FOI-3102-2223 Date published: 14 March 2023
You asked
, I would like to know:
• The advertising revenue generated by Transport for London, TfL, broken down by industry sector (however this is organised internally)
• Also if available, the advertising revenue generated by Transport for London, TfL, broken down by buses, trains, and stations
If possible I would like this data broken down quarterly for each of the last five years, with a year-end of December 31 or whatever year-end is used internally.
If you are unable to provide five years of data, please provide three years of data, otherwise please provide data for the last two years.
We answered
Our Ref: FOI-3102-2223
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 we do hold the information you require.
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.
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 in excess of 18 working hours to retrieve and compile the information you have requested.
Our advertising partner provides monthly gross revenue reports that provide information on the overall income generated by station, mode, and line. However, in order to extract the information you have requested we would need to go through each of the monthly reports and calculate the separate figures for TfL. We have started to go through the reports for 2018/19 and this has already taken a significant amount of time, and we believe providing this level of detail for any of the requested timeframes would exceed the cost limit.
We already publish annual gross income from commercial advertising is published in our Annual Report & Statement of Accounts available on our website:
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. For example, if you have specific questions about advertising revenue on a particular line or service then we may be able to provide you with this information. Also, as we receive this information in monthly reports, it would help if the timeframe was either for a set of months or annual data.
Before you consider submitting a revised request, please note that in accordance with the FOI Act, that disclosure of the data at the level you have requested may be refused under section 43(2) as disclosure could prejudice our commercial interests.
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 us. You should identify the information that you want as clearly and concisely as you can.
Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, we do 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 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
