Details of Southeastern ticket acceptance on TfL services
Request ID: FOI-3285-2223 Date published: 29 March 2023
You asked
Can you please provide details of the agreement and process Southeastern have to get ticket acceptance on London Underground between Cannon Street and Embankment due to planned engineering works that close Charring Cross & Waterloo East NR stations.
Example dates include Sunday Feb 12th 2023 and Saturday 8th April 2023.
Are you also able to provide details over the past 6 months where Southeastern have requested ticket acceptance on any TfL services that were not requested in advance / were not due to planned engineering works? (date/time/specific journey criteria acceptance is for/request approved or denied)
Can you also please provide details of the TfL process to inform your staff that ticket acceptance is in place for both planned and unplanned instances?
We answered
TfL Ref: 3285-2223
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 7 March 2023 asking for information about the agreement between Southeastern 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: 1. Can you please provide details of the agreement and process Southeastern have to get ticket acceptance on London Underground between Cannon Street and Embankment due to planned engineering works that close Charring Cross & Waterloo East NR stations. Example dates include Sunday Feb 12th 2023 and Saturday 8th April 2023.
2. Are you also able to provide details over the past 6 months where Southeastern have requested ticket acceptance on any TfL services that were not requested in advance / were not due to planned engineering works? (date/time/specific journey criteria acceptance is for/request approved or denied).
3. Can you also please provide details of the TfL process to inform your staff that ticket acceptance is in place for both planned and unplanned instances?
Question 1 Process (Planned):
Southeastern emails a list of closures and ticket acceptance required for them 2-3 times a year (each list usually covers approx. 4-6 months of upcoming closures).
TfL Rail Closures Planning (RCP) add them to a spreadsheet containing requests from all Train Operating Companies (TOCs).
Every 2 weeks the RCP email the relevant list of ticket acceptance to the Traffic Circular editor (it covers 2 weeks at a time and the Traffic Circular is published 2 weeks prior to the dates listed – e.g. On 8th March we submitted the requests for the TC covering 20th March – 3rd April, this gets published on 13th March). RCP also email the same list to TfL Ticketing who publishes the information on a more specific Ticket and Revenue document which is published on a weekly basis.
Ad-Hoc emails are sent from Southeastern if additional closures have been added to their programme which require ticket acceptance. These then follow the same process as above, unless they are short notice (they miss the Traffic Circular publication). In these situations the LUCC team and Ticketing are notified directly with the request.
2. Please see the attached for details of the occasions when we were requested to accept Southeastern tickets between 01 September 2022 and 28 February 2023.
3. Below is the process of agreement and informing staff for planned and unplanned closures.
Planned:
Details of ticket acceptance for planned works is published in the Traffic Circular as per our answer to question 1 above.
Unplanned:
In terms of our process for notifying staff about ticket acceptance for unplanned disruptions: once ticket acceptance has been agreed for a TOC, we issue a Connect Radio broadcast to all stations and we add a message to the ‘other travel information’ section on the LUCC Staff Viewer.
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
Sara Thomas FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
