FOI request detail

London overground Highbury & Islington trains diverted to Crystal Palace

Request ID: FOI-3163-1920
Date published: 31 January 2020

You asked

In advance of a complaint I will be submitting to TFL, associated travel watch dogs and interested local stakeholders regarding the diversions affecting West Croydon services I am submitting the Freedom of Information request below: • How many trains in total for the year to 17 January were diverted from West Croydon to Crystal Palace • Of these how many were diverted during peak rush hour in the morning • How many were diverted during evening rush hour • Of those diversions how many were due to late running of trains due to passenger incidents, signalling failures and how many due to other reasons including delays at Canada Water and late running services • When drivers terminate at Crystal Palace do they then drive the next trains from Crystal Palace or are they transported to West Croydon? • How much reimbursement for the above period has been distributed to passengers for disruption due to diversion I.e passengers catching the bus from CP to South Norwood or delays to their journey • When a train is diverted from west Croydon to Crystal Palace is this data then used to for statistics reporting that trains have arrived on time? • Are there other examples of trains on the TFL network being diverted to a different borough? Crystal Palace station is in the London Borough of Bromley and Norwood Junction and West Croydon are in the London Borough of Croydon • Are there other examples of other lines diverting to different stations at all? • Please provide average figures on the number of travellers alighting at Crystal Palace compared with those alighting at Anerley, Penge, south Norwood and west Croydon and therefore affected by these diversions • Proportion of investment for London overground service from New cross to Crystal Palace & West Croydon vs investments made on services Richmond and Clapham Junction to Stratford, Gospel Oak to Barking and Liverpool Street and West Hampstead services

We answered

TfL Ref: 3163-1920

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 18 January 2020 asking for information about London Overground trains from Highbury and Islington with a destination of West Croydon being diverted.

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 significantly exceed the cost limit to provide a response to your current request. This is because you have asked 11 questions in total across a wide range of the elements of the business (passenger numbers, and refunds of fares as well as performance and operational issues of the Highbury and Islington to West Croydon service). In order for us to answer question 4 for example would require us to manually review the cause of each diversion which has occurred over the year you have requested and then to compile and present the information. To answer all your questions together would be an onerous task and would significantly exceed the cost limit.

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 us. 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 the organisation.

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 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

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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