FOI 448598
FREEDOM OF INFORMATION REQUEST REFERENCE NO: 448598
I write in connection with your request for information which was received on 17th December 2025. Please find below the response to your request:
1. Does your police force record bus violence?
2. How many police call outs to buses due to violence have there been in each of the last five years?
3. How many arrests due to bus violence have there been in each of the last five years?
4. Do you record if the bus driver was the victim of this violence if so, please can I have the figure for violence against bus drivers for each of the last five years?
5. Has your police force introduced specific measures in the last five years to reduce bus violence, if so can you explain what those measures are?
Reply
Your request for information has been considered in accordance with the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (“the Act”), and I am not obliged to provide the information requested.
S.12(1) of the Act states that a public authority is not obliged to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying with the request would exceed the “appropriate limit”. For police forces in England and Wales, the "appropriate limit" is £450 or 18 hours of work as set by the Freedom of Information (Fees and Appropriate Limit) Regulations 2004.
The information you have requested is not available in a readily retrievable format. There is no specific offence relating to violence on buses, there is also no keyword or marker on our system to indicate that an offence has taken place on a bus or public transport in general. Therefore, we would need to search for all relevant violence offences and review the incident summaries to see if they took place on a bus. A key word search on the Primary Offence Sub Group of Violence with Injury or Violence without Injury which contained within the incident summary the key word “Bus” has returned 853 results. In order to ascertain whether the information you have requested is held would take in excess of 18 hours as each record would have to be checked individually to see if they took place on a bus rather than whilst the victim was walking towards their bus, or whilst stood in a bus station.
In accordance with s.17(5) of the Act, this acts as a Refusal Notice.
Under s.16 of the Act I have a duty to provide advice and assistance in relation to your request.
Unfortunately, due to the volume of records that would need to be reviewed I am unable to identify information that could be supplied within the fees limit.