ASA Adjudication on Transport For London

Ad

A poster, for Transport for London, was headlined “350 more buses to catch”; the ‘c’ in the word “catch” was replaced with the congestion charge logo. A strapline stated “The Charge is helping it happen”. A footnote stated “running at peak times by Spring 2005 compared with Spring 2003 in Greater London”.

Issue

The complainant, who believed the set up cost of the congestion charging scheme had not yet been met by revenues, challenged Transport for London to substantiate the implication that the congestion charge was contributing to the provision of extra bus services.

CAP Code (Edition 11)

Response

Transport for London (TfL) said the ad formed part of a poster campaign, which was developed as a response to Londoners who wanted to know what was happening with the revenues generated by Congestion Charging (CC) and what the wider benefits of the scheme had been. They said the strapline, "The charge is helping it happen", communicated to people that, although it was partly responsible for the benefits claimed, CC was not necessarily the sole reason there were more buses to catch. TfL said the wording was intended to give the impression that the claim represented the start of the benefits of CC and not their conclusion.

TfL said the start-up costs of the CC scheme covered the period 2000/1 to 2003/4. They said those costs had been met by the TfL general fund, which was secured by a Government grant, and maintained that the scheme broke even in 2003/4. TfL said the primary objective of CC was to reduce congestion and maintained that any revenues were a secondary benefit, although CC had raised surplus revenues in every year of its operation. TfL sent copies of the financial records of the CC scheme, which showed that it had generated net revenues of £78m in 2003/4, £97m in 2004/5 and, provisionally, £100m in 2005/6.

TfL pointed out that the Greater London Authority Act 1999 (GLA Act) required all net revenues from CC be used only for relevant transport purposes; one of the principal recipients was the bus network. TfL pointed out that their annual report showed a 12% increase in spending on the bus network in the year ending 31 March 2005 and an 8% increase for the year ending 31 March 2006, which saw total funding rise to £1,555m. They sent a breakdown of how net revenues from CC were being spent. They said the report showed that over the past two years £152m of CC revenue was invested directly into the bus network. TfL maintained that that increased expenditure was part of the reason over 350 more buses were running at peak times in Spring 2005 compared with Spring 2003.

Assessment

Not upheld

The ASA noted the information sent by TfL demonstrated that the CC scheme had yielded net revenues for each year after 2003/4 and that they had been invested directly into London public transport networks as required by the GLA Act. Although we noted the £152m of CC net revenues that had been invested were only a small proportion of the funding for the bus network, we considered that the strapline ...The Charge is helping it happen" made clear to people that CC net revenues had contributed to the provision of extra bus services. Because TfL had shown that CC net revenues had contributed, we concluded that the ad was unlikely to mislead.

We investigated the ad under CAP Code clauses 3.1 (Substantiation) and 7.1 (Truthfulness) but did not find it in breach.

Action

No further action required.

Adjudication of the ASA Council (Non-broadcast)