| Topic: | Dear Cllr Cooper.... | |
| Posted by: | John Cameron | |
| Date/Time: | 09/06/19 11:25:00 |
| From: John Cameron Date: 9 June 2019 at 12:21:31 pm CEST To: Leonie Cooper Cc: TFL Traffic Enforcement Subject: Virtual barrier - Upper Richmond Road / Dryburgh Road Dear Cllr Cooper Virtual barrier - Upper Richmond Road / Dryburgh Road Transport for London TFL’s response to my FOI stated 359 PCN’s and some £25,000 of payments from those fines, an average payment of just over £70/pcn. My understanding is that a PCN fine is £130 with a 50% discount if paid promptly. The average suggests that most are paid promptly, and TFL point out that the total may rise as more payments are made - so it follows that not all have been paid. However, based on my observations, this is a staggeringly low ‘success rate’ in terms of fining drivers for ignoring the signs, an average of some 10 a day. In your email of 4 June you pointed out... “TfL has had its entire budget cut for roads by central government. This has removed over £700m per annum, and makes London the only city in the country, and I believe the world, that does not receive any central government support in respect of its transport system.” I believe as many as 200 unlawful turns are made / day, but lets assume it is less, say 100. If all of these were ‘captured’ and fined, the income for the FOI period above would have been in the order of £250,000, not £25,000. It seems that TFL, (which you suggest needs the money) have left £225,000 on the table, in seven weeks, or over £1.6m in a year. ANPR camera technology is used by TFL to enforce the congestion zone and red route, but it seems that TFL do not enforce or have the cameras in place to enforce this dangerous junction - which would be a ‘virtual cash machine’ if TFL got it’s act together. TFL cannot excuse itself over a lack of budget, as the ROI on rigorous enforcement would claw back any additional costs in a matter of days. In view of this I would ask you to investigate with TFL... 1. Why do they not enforce the junction with rigour? 2. What steps do they intend to take to do so? 3. If they do not intend to do so, given they need the income, why not? It would be interesting to know how many other junctions TFL don’t bother to enforce, and what is the total of ‘lost revenue’ that they are missing out on due to operational inability / inefficiency to enforce the regulations. Wandsworth You will also have seen that Henry Cheung helpfully confirmed that WBC do not hold any information in respect of how the virtual barrier came to be put in place, let alone any paper or feasibility on the ‘financial savings’ by removing the physical barrier. It seems to me that this is a cover up by WBC as there is no argument for ‘financial savings’. In view of this can you please, ascertain from Wandsworth 1. Why the material is missing, and who would be responsible for it’s loss? 2. The justification for the removal of the physical barrier, thereby making it an accident waiting to happen. Thank you. John |