Please provide the following information:
1. For each year since 2015, the total number of recorded days that temporary traffic lights were in place in your authority.
2. For each year since 2015, the longest period of time a temporary traffic light has been in place in your authority.
3. The highest number of temporary traffic lights recorded at any one junction or road for each year since 2015 in your authority.
In response to questions 1, 2 and 3 Devon County Council considers compliance with this request would exceed the appropriate cost limit under Section 12 of the Freedom of Information Act 2000 which is £450 or 18 hours of officer time.
This is because we can only search on ‘high impact’ traffic management. This includes temporary traffic lights, Stop/Go boards, lane and road closures and we cannot differentiate without inspecting each individual record.
While it is possible to identify the number of permits associated to temporary traffic lights ((TTLs) it would require a manual review of each permit to provide the information requested.
In 2023 we had in the region of 9,500 planned permit applications and in the region of 12,000 reactive works (varies annually) with ‘high impact traffic management’. Of these, about 50%+ will be TTL’s, therefore, in excess of 10,000 permits annually.
Interrogating these permits individually for 2023 alone is likely to take one individual about 10 minutes per record to identify the number of days for the TTL’s (please note, it is only available to interrogate in this format from 2020). For 2023 alone this could take in excess of 1,600 hours.
Under the Freedom of Information Act, there is a duty to provide advice and assistance as to how a request can be refined to fit within the appropriate limit. Unfortunately, due to the way the data is held this is not possible for this request.