Request ID: FOI-3192-2324 Date published: 04 January 2024
You asked
TFL is a member of 'Waze for Cities' which provides a wealth of information about journey times and traffic congestion, not available to the public.
1. Please confirm if any analysis has been conducted on the impact of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods on the TFL boundary roads, and wider impacts; using Google/Waze data which TFL has access to.
2. Please provide conclusions to analysis conducted in point (1).
Most available studies completed to date rely on traffic monitoring which does not record slow moving traffic.
We answered
TfL Ref: 3192-2324 Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 4 December 2023 asking for information about 'Waze for Cities' and TfL. Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require. You asked about the following: TFL is a member of 'Waze for Cities' which provides a wealth of information about journey times and traffic congestion, not available to the public. 1. Please confirm if any analysis has been conducted on the impact of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods on the TFL boundary roads, and wider impacts; using Google/Waze data which TFL has access to. We can advise thatWaze - the real time traffic and navigation app, provides two sources of public sourced data that could be useful for Transport for London:
General traffic journey time data.
Incident data.
TfL uses Inrix data - crowd sourced from GPS devices in vehicles, for our general traffic journey time data. We consider this to be more comprehensive in London coverage and more accurate than Waze data. We therefore use Inrix data in scheme, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods (LTNs) and bus route assessments. 2. Please provide conclusions to analysis conducted in point (1). Most available studies completed to date rely on traffic monitoring which does not record slow moving traffic. We use public sourced Waze incident data in the Network Management Control Centre as one of various sources of data to identify incidents on the road network, which we monitor 24 hours a day. This data helps the NMCC to prioritise its responses on the road network. We are working with Waze as part of our Surface Intelligent Transport System (SITS) programme - to incorporate incident data into our real time incident detection tool that we are developing for the NMCC as part of the roll out of this technology programme. We also use Waze incident data in-directly in scheme monitoring where identification of incidents (sourced from many different data sets, including Waze incident data), helps explain discrepancies in outcomes such as general traffic journey times, including those related to LTNs. ‘The impacts of LTNs in London’ report may also be of interest: https://content.tfl.gov.uk/impacts-of-ltns-in-london.pdf If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, 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 Jasmine Howard FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
