Crossrail and Freedom Pass
Request ID: FOI-3785-1920
Date published: 03 April 2020
You asked
Part 1. In relation to Crossrail can you please advise:
1) I would like to obtain information or a breakdown list of how the cross rail budget was split up? how much has been put aside to be spent on each part of cross rail (for example, building the railway, ordering trains, electrification, building/improving stations and how much each part is over budget by.
2) What is your timeline breakdown for Cross rail
I know it is proposed to Open cross rail by 2021 but what about station improvements and building new stations. When are all the stations proposed to be completed?
2a) How long is the timeline for this over by?
3) how much is being spent on improving each station?
General FOI Requests:
A) In a year what is the total usage cost of the Freedom pass within TFL trains and buses?
b) How much funding does TFL receive for the freedom pass?
c) I am aware freedom card usage is being extended to/from Reading, How is this being funded as it is outside of London?
d) With the closure of ticket Offices can you tell me:
In the remaining number of station ticket offices how many tickets are bought from station ticket offices?
How many tickets have been bought from TFL ticket machines?
e) Can you send me a copy of the contract fare agreement with Great Western Railway?
For example if someone pays TFL contactless for a GWR Train to London Paddington how much commission does GWR AND TFL receive? Or if someone buys a Gwr eticket how much commission does TFL get?
NB - The first part is in relation to Cross rail I am talking generally about tfl rail trains and the building of Cross rail
The second part General FOI is in relation to TFl services overall/including all TFl transport.
We answered
TfL Refs: FOI-3733-1920, FOI-3785-1920 and FOI-3839-1920
Thank you for your recent requests of 5th March 2020, 6th March 2020 and 10th March 2020.
Specifically you asked the following:
Case ref 3733-1920:
1) I don't know if you can reveal this but in 2003 How much did TFL spend on the project to accept (Oyster card/contactless systems", Can you advise on a break down for the following
- What was the Software cost
- How much were the contactless readers to buy?
- Cost of Creating oyster cards?
- Cost of the creating/developing the Oyster card?
General breakdown costs of all costs involved in setting up the project, if you can reveal this information?
2) Do you still have a copy of the TFL Press Release from 2003 announcing the launch of accepting Oyster/Contactless?
3) Are you able to reveal a copy of the document bundle that was sent to your development team to set up the Oyster/contactless system in 2003
In relation to Great Western Railway (GWR) and TFL Rail
4 a) Has TFL signed a contract with Great Western Railway to accept Great Western Railway electronic tickets and smart cards on TFL Journeys?
b) Has TFL signed a "cost sharing agreement with Great Western Railway" for example, if someone Taps In on a yellow TFL reader and boards a GWR Train. How much commission does Great Western Railway receive?
c) In relation to Question A, does TFL receive any commission from tickets bought from Great Western Railway such as, season tickets loaded onto Smart cards?
Can I have a copy of these agreements if possible?
Case ref 3785-1920:
Part 1. In relation to Crossrail can you please advise:
1) I would like to obtain information or a breakdown list of how the cross rail budget was split up? how much has been put aside to be spent on each part of cross rail (for example, building the railway, ordering trains, electrification, building/improving stations and how much each part is over budget by.
2) What is your timeline breakdown for Cross rail
I know it is proposed to Open cross rail by 2021 but what about station improvements and building new stations. When are all the stations proposed to be completed?
2a) How long is the timeline for this over by?
3) how much is being spent on improving each station?
General FOI Requests:
A) In a year what is the total usage cost of the Freedom pass within TFL trains and buses?
b) How much funding does TFL receive for the freedom pass?
c) I am aware freedom card usage is being extended to/from Reading, How is this being funded as it is outside of London?
d) With the closure of ticket Offices can you tell me:
In the remaining number of station ticket offices how many tickets are bought from station ticket offices?
How many tickets have been bought from TFL ticket machines?
e) Can you send me a copy of the contract fare agreement with Great Western Railway?
For example if someone pays TFL contactless for a GWR Train to London Paddington how much commission does GWR AND TFL receive? Or if someone buys a Gwr eticket how much commission does TFL get?
Case ref 3839-1920:
Under the Freedom of Information Act I would like to obtain a copy of the Contract between Transport for London and Great Western Railway in relation to the Purchase of All Stations between Reading - Iver.
Specifically, I would like to obtain the following documents/information:
- A copy of the Contract detailing the purchase of each station between Reading - Iver and what is included in the Purchase?
- A copy of the Condition/Health and Safety Report" detailing what matters needed to be addressed?
- What was the total Cost of Legal fees (can you include the purchase cost) spent by TFL?
- Whether Great Western Raiwlay still has any ownership or current standing agreements with Stations if so what?
- What were the conditions of the Sale?
- To include detail of What improvement work needed to be completed at all stations in prep for the Elizabeth line?
- A copy of the Disabled accessibility report whether each station met current disabled access regulations
- Finally what were the terms/obligations set by Network Railway for TFL managing the stations and taking over the railway?
Your requests have been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Freedom of Information Act and our information access policy.
I can confirm that we hold some of the information you require. However, your requests are being refused under section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act, the exemption relating to excessive costs. Under section 12, a public authority such as TfL is not obliged to respond to a request if it would cost more than £450 to determine if the information is held, and to then locate, retrieve or extract that information from elsewhere. This is calculated at a rate of £25 per hour, equivalent to 18 hours work. Note that when considering the application of section 12, public authorities may include the costs of complying with two or more requests from the same person, if they are received within any period of 60 consecutive days and are for the same or similar information. While assessing the cost of answering your questions is not an exact science, given the large number of questions submitted and the complexity of some of them we estimate that the £450 limit would clearly be breached.
In order to bring your requests within the costs limit you may wish to consider narrowing the scope, to focus specifically on the information that is of most importance to you. In doing so, I would advise that you consider the advice given by the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) on how best to access information from public bodies, as shown on its website here:
https://ico.org.uk/your-data-matters/official-information/
In particular, note the table of “Dos and Don’t’s” found on that page which includes the following advice:
Do: Give the authority ample opportunity to address any previous requests you have made before submitting new ones.
Do: Aim to be flexible if the authority advises that it can’t meet the full request on cost grounds and asks you to narrow it down. Try to work with the organisation to produce a streamlined version of the request which still covers the core information that is most important to you.
Finally, please also be aware that the Government announced new measures on 16th March 2020 to tackle the Coronavirus. It is critical for London, and in particular for all essential workers and services, that we continue to provide the best transport service we can. If you are considering submitting an revised FOI request we urge you to think carefully whether the request is essential at this time. Answering FOI requests will require the use of limited resources and the attention of staff who could be supporting other essential activity. Where requests are made, please note that our response time is likely to be affected by the current situation. Note also that a large amount of information can also be found on both the TfL (https://tfl.gov.uk/) and Crossrail (http://www.crossrail.co.uk/) websites which may be of use to you.
Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal.
Yours sincerely,
David Wells
FOI Case Officer
FOI Case Management Team
General Counsel
Transport for London
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