Reporting of faults on the A725 Bellshill: EIR release

Information requested

"We would refer to the above and would be grateful if you could provide us with any reports of damaged and or faulty traffic lights and confirmation of the traffic light sequence at the Shawhead Flyover, North Road, A725 Bellshill, on the 13th November 2018 on and around 13:00pm."

Response

As the information you have requested is ‘environmental information’ for the purposes of the Environmental Information (Scotland) Regulations 2004 (EIRs), 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.

While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance we do not have the information you have requested. Neither Transport Scotland, nor SRP who is responsible for the operation and maintenance of the Shawhead Flyover on behalf of Transport Scotland, holds records of the traffic light sequencing for the signals for 13 November 2018. This is because the traffic light sequencing at this junction is controlled by a system called Microprocessor Optimised Vehicle
Actuation (MOVA). MOVA is an intelligent system which determines the amount of green time to give to a particular direction depending on the traffic volumes to maximise the throughput of the junction under the particular traffic conditions.

SRP has confirmed that there were no reports of faults at this location on or around the date stated above.

Under the terms of the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs (information not held), Transport Scotland is not required to provide information which it does not have. 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. While we recognise there may be some public interest in a copy of a traffic light sequencing report clearly we cannot provide information which we do not hold.

About FOI

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