Vehicles stopped by red light signals on A75 at Springholm: EIR release

Information requested

 

“By way of follow up to Freedom of Information Request; FOI/19/00092, I wish to know the number of vehicles that were stopped by the red light signals installed on the A75 at Springholm and the percentage of vehicles that obeyed the triggering of the signals.”

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.

 

In response to the number of vehicles that were stopped by the red light signals installed on the A75 at Springholm, while our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the Scottish Government does not have the information you have requested.  Therefore we are refusing your request under the exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs.  The reasons why that exception applies is we do not hold this information. We have equipment on site which measures the number of times the traffic signals are activated by a vehicle travelling above the speed threshold. For example, one vehicle could activate the red traffic signal which would result in that one or several following vehicles being stopped by the red lights, however the number of following vehicles stopped by the red light are not counted. 

We have also applied this exception at regulation 10(4)(a) of the EIRs for the request for the percentage of vehicles that obeyed the triggering of the signals. Similarly, we do not hold this information. We have equipment which records the number of vehicles which do not comply with the red traffic signals however we do not record or measure the number of vehicles who obey the signals. Similar to Answer 1, if one vehicle triggers the red traffic signal, it or any number of following vehicles could be stopped by the red light, however the number of following vehicles that obey the lights are not counted.

 

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.