Mayor answers to London

Dial-a-Ride (4)

[Main question]

Question by Caroline Pidgeon

Further to your answer to my question 2443/2009 about the refused trips by Dial-a-Ride differing from the predictions set out in the 2007 Transport for London Investment Programme, can you clarify whether Transport for London have any remaining targets for lowering the number of refusals? If such targets do still remain what are they?

Answer by Boris Johnson

Dial-a-Ride’s performance is continuing to improve and the main focus of improvement is to increase the number of journeys provided to disabled and older Londoners, rather than to simply reduce the refusal rate.

Dial-a-Ride has a finite level of resources so is unlikely to ever be in a position where everybody will be able to do the trip they want at the specific time that they want. For example, there are very high peaks in demand at 2pm and 4pm in the week when social clubs start and finish. Nevertheless, whilst the demand for the Dial a Ride service continues to increase, DaR has reduced the level of refusals in the first two quarters of 2009/10 in both absolute and percentage terms compared to the previous year. Dial-a-Ride currently accommodates 91 out of every 100 journey requests.