Access to Transport Scotland B road traffic information: EIR release

FOI reference: FOI/17/02944
Date received: 5 December 2017
Date responded: 3 January 2018

Information requested

"Having accessed the Transport Scotland, Map Application website recently, I was surprised to discover that traffic count data is now only available for sections of the A classified road network. For several years I have been using the previous version of the website to check traffic flow on the B768 in Glasgow. Would you, therefore, please explain why this information is no longer available. Or, if another source is available with this information could you direct me to this website location."

Response

As the information you have requested is 'environmental information' for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIR's), we are required to deal with your request under those Regulations. We are applying the exemption at section 39(2) of the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act 2002 (FOISA), so that we do not also have to deal with your request under FOISA.

This exemption is subject to the 'public interest test'. Therefore, taking account of all the circumstances of this case, we have considered if the public interest in disclosing the information outweighs the public interest in applying the exemption. We have found that, on balance, the public interest lies in favour of upholding the exemption, because there is no public interest in dealing with the same request under two different regimes. This is essentially a technical point and has no material effect on the outcome of your request.

Thank you for your request and also emailing a copy of the letter from the Scottish Executive, in which it was confirmed that the automatic traffic counting site installed between Urrdale Road and Nithsdale Rd would be maintained on a permanent basis.

This site, (JTC00151) was the subject of correspondence in October 2014 when you requested data from it. Unfortunately the site had been disturbed during road works and we advised you at that time that no further data would be available as the site was considered to be temporary for the purposes of the M74 study. This was an error on our part and I can confirm that the site is a permanent, not a temporary, counter site.

I can therefore advise that the site will be fully reinstated as soon as possible and I will contact you once this work is complete to confirm when data from the site will become available. In relation to other sources of relevant data, this has been discussed with Glasgow City Council and I can confirm that they do not have a counter in the area that would provide an alternative source of data.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at http://www.gov.scot/foi-responses