Request ID: FOI-3454-2223 Date published: 13 April 2023
You asked
Dear FOI Office,
This is a request for data on the payment methods used to pay for London Underground Fares, specifically:
- Unique number of credit/debit card pay-as-you-go transactions each year
- Unique number of credit/debit cards used for pay-as-you-go transactions each year
- Unique number of oyster card pay-as-you-go transactions each year
- Unique number of active oyster cards used for pay-as-you-go transactions each year
- Each of the above split by payment network (e.g., Visa, Mastercard, American Express) where applicable
- Each of the above split by zone (e.g., a fare for Zone 3 to Zone 1, Zone 2 to Zone 3, Zone 1 to Zone 1, etc.)
I am requesting data for the financial years 2015/16, 2016/17, 2017/18, 2018/19, 2019/20, 2020/21, and 2021/22.
We answered
Our ref: FOI-3454-2223/GH
Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 20 March 2023 asking for information about payment methods used to pay for London Underground Fares.
Your request has been considered under the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we do hold some of the information you require. However, 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 requests 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. In this instance, we estimate that the time required to answer your request would exceed 18 hours which, at £25 per hour (the rate stipulated by the Regulations), exceeds the ‘appropriate limit’.
We no longer hold the requested information for 2015/16. Whilst we could answer the first four questions you have asked from 2016/17 onwards, providing this information split by fare zone would require a significant amount of work as there are so many possible zone combinations, and this would exceed the appropriate limit.
We are also unable to provide you with the information split by payment network as this information is commercially sensitive.
To help bring the cost of responding to your requests within the £450 limit, you may wish to consider refining your requests to concentrate on matters which are important to you.
If you are not satisfied with this response please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely
Graham Hurt FOI Case Officer FOI Case Management Team General Counsel Transport for London
