Between July 2, 2012, and September 22, 2017, please provide: 1. The number of Uber accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 2. The total number of journeys taken using Uber and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims. 3. The number of Addison Lee accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 4. The total number of journeys taken using Addison Lee and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims. 5. The number of Carrot Cars accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 6. The total number of journeys taken using Carrot Cars and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims. And then between September 22, 2017, and January 22, 2018, please provide: 1. The number of Uber accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 2. The total number of journeys taken using Uber and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims. 3. The number of Addison Lee accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 4. The total number of journeys taken using Addison Lee and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims. 5. The number of Carrot Cars accounts held by the authority or employees for their official use. 6. The total number of journeys taken using Carrot Cars and the total amount spent. Please include expenditure either on official debit/credit cards or expense claims.

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Our ref: FOI-4399-1718/GH

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 5 February 2018 asking for information about private hire usage.

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 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 do not record this information in a way which would allow us to easily report the information requested. When taxis or minicabs are used for by employees on official business an expense claim would need to be submitted. To answer your request we would need to check the receipt or details of each taxi/private hire expense claim for a period of over five years, to see whether one of the operators you have named were used.  This would take an excessive amount of time. 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.

Although your request can take the form of a question, rather than a request for specific documents, TfL does 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. If you have specific questions relating to these topics we may be more easily able to respond to these than to a request for any information held.

Yours sincerely

Graham Hurt

FOI Case Officer

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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