Highways – Scanner Survey Data

I would like to receive a copy of the data collected in the Devon County area in SCANNER Surveys ( a road maintenance service mandatory to be performed by council’s within the UK)

The data collected in these surveys comes in HMDif format and contains information regarding the physical state of the road. It is precisely this data that I am after in this format.

Ideally, I would like to get a data set stretching back 10 years from the present date.

I am aware the data can be sizeable (2-5 GB for a complete data set), however this shouldn’t be a problem, as the HMDIF files compress really well in ZIP archives (apprx. 10:1 ratio).

The raw data is held by a contractor on behalf of Devon County Council.    As you have acknowledged in your request, the data is very large and the contractor has confirmed that it would take approximately 4 days per year to extract the data.  An average working day is 8 hours; it is reasonable to estimate that it will therefore take 36 hours per year.

You have requested 10 years and it would therefore take 360 hours to extract this data.

This is in excess of the appropriate time limit of 18 hours and therefore, pursuant to s.12 of the Freedom of Information Act, we are not obliged to provide you with this information.