• Reference: 2024/0182
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

In your responses to questions 2023/4703, 2023/2814, 2022/1220 and 2019/21049 you’ve asserted that TfL allows bus operators to conduct their own investigations of crashes involving their vehicles because they are “best placed” to “compile evidence” and “commence investigations”. Can you explain why you think bus operators are ‘best placed’ to investigate crash incidents involving vehicles they own and drivers they employ? Are you aware of any other contracted vehicle fleet in London (or the United Kingdom) that is similarly indulged?

• Reference: 2024/0181
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

While you’ve already made it clear from your response to, inter alia, question 2023/4703, that you have no intention of asking TfL to independently investigate collisions involving its contracted bus operators’ vehicles because bus operators are “best placed to compile the evidence”, has TfL ever issued instructions to bus operators detailing what precise information these investigations should contain to support your ‘ambitious’ Vision Zero goals? If so, can you provide me a copy of these instructions and some evidence that bus operators are abiding by them?

• Reference: 2024/0180
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

How do you reconcile your ‘ambitious’ Vision Zero goals with the facts that (a) in your response to question 2023/4128, you confirmed that TfL’s highest-ranking Safety Officer achieved NEBOSH & IOSH Qualifications over 3 years after being appointed to that role and (b) in your response to question 2023/4794, you confirmed that TfL’s new Head of Buses lacks those qualifications which were, in fact, long-held by the outgoing officer? Is “learning about safety on the job” one of the key attributes of your ‘ambitious’ Vision Zero programme?

• Reference: 2024/0179
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

In September 2023, I asked you question 2023/3338 “For the 110 incidents of TfL bus drivers critically injuring pedestrians on zebra crossings during the period 1 January 2016 to 11 July 2023, how many were prosecuted and how many were convicted? When will you respond with the data I requested?

• Reference: 2024/0178
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

Given the facts that a) your Vision Zero programme was announced in 2018 and (b) a 2014 London Assembly Investigation reported that “an astonishing 25 per cent of pedestrian deaths and serious injuries occur at pedestrian crossings”, I was astounded to discover in your response to question 2023/2811 that TfL’s ‘centralised reporting system’ to which all “bus operators are required to report all safety-related incidents that occur on the bus network…does not specifically record crossing types”. Will you immediately commit TfL to updating its ‘Bus Safety Reporting System’ to include crossing types?

• Reference: 2024/0177
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

It has come to my attention that after a recent bus route tender, the bus operator that TfL selected as the winner has reduced the meal break times and stand time offered by the previous incumbent to bus drivers by, respectively, 20 and 50 percent. In making its decisions about bus tenders, does TfL consider how the winning bids may extract costs from operations and how these plans may degrade working conditions that have a direct impact on long-standing and well-evidenced safety problems like driver fatigue and distracted driving?

• Reference: 2024/0176
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

Given that key safety-critical matters are discussed, minuted and actioned at the tripartite meetings between TfL, its bus contractors and Unite the Union, will you agree to publish all past and future tripartite meeting minutes on TfL’s website?

• Reference: 2024/0175
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

Please will you provide me with a copy of the 17 November 2023 tripartite meeting minutes?

• Reference: 2024/0174
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

How many tripartite meetings took place in 2023? Please will you provide me with the (a) date (b) location (c) agenda (d) decisions or actions agreed as well as the names of accountable persons and (e) any text of a decision providing a reason why the parties agreed that minutes should not be taken?

• Reference: 2024/0173
• Question by: Keith Prince
• Meeting date: 18 January 2024

TfL’s 18 December 2023 email about the information I requested in question 2023/3636, mentions that in 2022, in addition to the three meetings in April, May and November 2022, there was a fourth tripartite meeting in 2022 where “minutes were not taken”. For this fourth tripartite meeting, please will you provide me with the (a) date (b) location (c) agenda (d) decisions or actions agreed as well as the names of accountable persons and (e) text of the decision providing a reason why the parties agreed that minutes should not be taken?