TfL Abandons Plans For Driverless Tube Trains (ianvisits.co.uk) 26
Transport for London (TfL) has dropped its investigation into how it could introduce driverless trains on the London Underground. From a report: One of the many conditions imposed on TfL during the pandemic to keep services running when most of us were stuck at home was that it would investigate how it could introduce driverless trains on the Underground. TfL was required to produce a business case for converting the Waterloo & City line and Piccadilly line to a DLR-style operation, and in September 2021, it advertised for consultancy work on the project.
It's now been confirmed that the study reached the same conclusion that every other study into the issue has already reported -- it'll cost an awful lot of money for very little benefit. Despite the claims that it would prevent strikes on the tube, the reality is that it wouldn't, as driverless trains would still have staff on board, just as the DLR does, and the DLR still has strikes.
It's now been confirmed that the study reached the same conclusion that every other study into the issue has already reported -- it'll cost an awful lot of money for very little benefit. Despite the claims that it would prevent strikes on the tube, the reality is that it wouldn't, as driverless trains would still have staff on board, just as the DLR does, and the DLR still has strikes.
Missing a major major point (Score:4, Interesting)
The Tube suffers from being one of the most used metros while simultaneously being one of the oldest. In comparison to other metros it is in horrendous shape and in desperate need of some maintenance and overhaul. The switch to DLR necessitates an upgrade that would almost be justifiable without the driverless component.
I've been on metros all over the world, there's so far only one which has made me question whether we should be mandating hearing protection due to the noise the rusty old carriages make across the ancient lines. The Tube is just not nice to ride in, fellow passengers or not, on peak or off.
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Is it really in horrendous shape? I suppose it varies by line, but those I used a few weeks ago (Picadilly, Circle, Bakerloo, Elizabeth) seemed to be in far better shape than most of the MBTA.
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The Elizabeth is the newest line on the network. It opened a little over 2 years ago.
The northern half of the Circle Line is the oldest in the world (not the first, that was the Liverpool end of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, but that now takes a different alignment). But it has been upgraded relatively recently.
The Bakerloo has the oldest trains on the network, and the Piccadilly has the second oldest, and it shows. The Piccadilly has major reliability problems with its trains, and TfL have just tak
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Everything is relative. To be clear I'm thankful for it. The fact that it's there is a significant benefit over it not being there at all, but the reality is it is most definitely showing its age which should surprise no one. Due to its importance there's virtually no opportunity to shut it down for any significant maintenance.
I can't comment on comparison to American public transport like the MBTA, but ... doesn't ... most of the world ... use the term "American public transport system" as a setup for a pa
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So you're saying it's worse than the MTA subways in NYC in terms of noise and track quality? I feel sorry for Londoners then.
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Can't say, not been on that one. Actually NYC is one place I've always wanted to go visit but never managed to.
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It's the UK in a nutshell. The plebs get a barely functional service that it's chronically under invested, while the wealthy don't care about the congestion charge and parking costs.
Three words (Score:2)
Cyborg driven trains, but pay them well. Sorry, seven, and no, this didn't come out of Springfield
Unions and a Labour administration. (Score:2)
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Nothing to do with this. Infrastructure is really, really expensive and the cost of people relatively small. At some point bits of the underground will move and maybe they will become driverless, but to make them operate properly you need full barriers across the platforms which means new trains and new lines. And, given how old the underground is, it's quite possible new tunnels.
The drivers are not there just to push the go button thousands of times; they are there for the one time there is an emergency.
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Remote control, cameras, redundant network... 1 person monitoring everything all at once. Much cheaper long term... realistically, it doesn't work because voters are too incompetent. The transit systems in many places are poorly maintained because of the voters. Those barely functioning systems manage because the only updated component are the human workers.
I'm sure a machine and remote access would do it better but before it paid for itself (including the always extra high costs which is another issue,)
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The drivers are not there just to push the go button thousands of times; they are there for the one time there is an emergency.
Exactly this. In addition to the non-linear thinking occasionally needed, if the autopilot has a Boeing MCAS moment, we could have an inadvertent but quite deliberate death incident as the software determines is needed.
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That's not the way trains work. At all. Drivereless metros are becoming a norm across the world because when you're on the rails in a tunnel, you can't in fact do anything as a driver if train has an "automation decided to dive".
Because trains can't dive. They can only move on rails.
It's the same thing with driverless cars. As long as you completely control the environment and route (as you obviously do with a metro), you can in fact have driverless cars right now with current tech. And unlike trains, cars
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That's not the way trains work. At all. Drivereless metros are becoming a norm across the world because when you're on the rails in a tunnel, you can't in fact do anything as a driver if train has an "automation decided to dive".
Because trains can't dive. They can only move on rails.
Dood! do you actually for a minute believe that I was trying to equate a subway with an airplane as regards operating?
It's the same thing with driverless cars. As long as you completely control the environment and route (as you obviously do with a metro),
There is perhaps not as much complete control as you assume
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At some point bits of the underground will move and maybe they will become driverless, but to make them operate properly you need full barriers across the platforms which means new trains and new lines.
You don't need platform barriers for driverless trains, such barriers are a different issue entirely. As TFA said, there would still be a staff member on board anyway, which is exactly how the Victoria line has been worked since it was built in 1967. And why the heck would you need new lines?
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The trains on half the tube lines already drive themselves, with the drivers only pushing a button to close the doors, yet these studies always factor in the costs of replacing all the trains.
Never underestimate how much that last human check costs to automate. There are plenty of driverless tubes in the world, they all share things in common: safety features at all *stations* to ensure you don't end up severing someone's limb.
Also never underestimate the cost of a system retrofit. It often sounds simple and you very quickly end up spending just as much retrofitting old rolling stock as you do on new ones, ... and why wouldn't you. The tube is in a horrendous shape. One way or the other it would
Trying to funding their research + consulting jobs (Score:2)
Oddly, proposing, researching and implementing a technology transition for a public transportation service ends up with former government/transit employees improving their economic lot in life by retiring to become highly paid consultants for other such projects in other cities.
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The study was commissioned at the behest of the Tory government, as was explained in the article. If the Tory government didn't like the consultants used, or the process used, or the publishing deadline, etc, that was in their gift to change. Given they were content with all of that, it seems odd to think that the report is self-evidently biased because of Sadiq Khan being a Labour mayor. As others have pointed out, you're indulging in post-hoc rationalisation of your position that it must surely be cheap b
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The DLR has a train captain who pushes a button to close the doors. So all you would be doing is changing the employee's job title and moving them out of the driver's cab into the main portion of the train.
I have no idea what these guys write (Score:3)
The city of Paris operates a fully driverless metro since 1998 (line 14) and it has given so much satisfaction that it has been extended on both ends; four additional lines are being built as we talk (15, 16, 17, 18), and one more is under project (19).
Advantages:
* Increased train rates (1 train every 85 seconds) (instead of typically once every 150 seconds on human driven line 1)
* Increased train speed (40 km/h end-to-end average instead of 25-30 km/h in human driven)
* Increased customer satisfaction (good timeliness and less crowded). Line 14 is rated 2nd best quality of service in Paris by travellers ( https://www.lesechos.fr/2018/0... [lesechos.fr] ).
Paris was apparently the first capital city to adopt a fully driverless metro on a major line; but smaller scale driverless trains have been operating in France since 1983, to much popular success. I have no idea why London would not want that. The only drawback is the higher construction cost, but the advantages outweigh the cost if the objective is to serve well your citizens.
'the objective is to serve well your citizens' LOL (Score:2)
Nah - don't be silly. The London tube is held hostage by the rail unions to do exactly what they want. A serious strike on it would disrupt London to such an extent that no government is ever going to get to that point; instead we have brief strikes which lead to the government extracting more money from taxpayers to keep the workers happy.
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Victoria line trains run every 100 seconds, and have an operating speed of 80km/h. It takes 30 minutes to do the 21km route, so the end-end average is 42km/h.
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There's a difference between new lines and the work needed to retrofit an existing very heavily used line. The cost of including driverless systems in a bid for a new line is virtually pocket change lost in the noise. But you could compare Line 14 to Line 4. Specifically you could compare how it took almost as long to retrofit Line 4 with driverless automation as it took to build the entire Line 14 from scratch. And just to be clear the Piccadilly line has 5x the ridership of Line 4 making it significantly
Trains should be replaced (Score:2)
Replaced the existing trains with 3 person pods, pre-programmed to pull in to each station and stop (either at the end of the platform, or behind the last car already stopped there), wait a few seconds to see if the door opens, and then continue as soon as the time has passed and the door is in a closed state.
With the exception of road crossings, you could have your system running more or less constantly.
Eventually you can get fancy and add bypass rails so the pods don't have to stop at stations the riders