"...progress towards the conversion of at least one Underground line to Grade-of-Automation 3 (driverless, but with an on-board attendant, as on the Docklands Light Railway), subject to a viable business case and its statutory responsibilities."
They are only aiming to do one line, which just happens to meet a complex set of constraints outlined in the article. Doing the entire network would require a massive set of changes as outlined in the article (e.g. to rolling stock, platforms and signalling) to meet the safety requirements.
The requirement for an on-board attendant means that the driverless trains will still be at risk of strike action, in contrast to the line taken by some commenters here.
Note that the actual title is 'political myth'. The article suggests that the main reason for the change is to demonstrate political vision rather than, say, cost savings.
> The requirement for an on-board attendant means that the driverless trains will still be at risk of strike action, in contrast to the line taken by some commenters here.
That's true, although it might be a lot better than the current setup, if they're able to more easily replace that person (say, if they don't have to have specialised training).
I'm not familiar with TfL and their strike habits, but over here in strike-happy Paris, where conductors decide to stop driving on a whim, the automatic lines are practically never concerned [0]. They are, however, "level 4", as in there's no human present on board. They do require people at the control centre, though.
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[0] I say "practically" because while I don't remember there ever being any reduction of traffic, even during major national strikes, I don't take the metro that often and I may have missed some. Though I'm pretty confident that it would have made the headlines.
Won't be popular opinion but, one benefit of driverless subway is: decreased risk of industrial action disruptions.
In the city I live underground drivers hold ridiculous privileged (even compared to other underground workers) that allows positions to be effectively hereditary: children of drivers are more likely to get into the job than others.
4000 drivers at an average of around £70K per year is not chump change (£280M) + employer costs for staff. Out of a budget of maybe £5B per year, it is not insignificant but I would expect there are other areas where savings could more easily be gained.
Maintenance is crazy due to the short maintenance hours and therefore everyone getting paid enhanced rates to work 0:00 to 04:00. Significantly modernizing signalling and control would be expensive but would probably back back over time.
A few years back I was in a control room in a tube station and saw some steampunk looking machine that we assumed was related to the old destination boards on the station, which were long gone but the machine was still operational and left alone. Why? Because who would risk breaking something just to remove some random old piece of kit!
Not just any 1 person, a driver, who must have years of training, if they don't turn up to work 1000's other people don't get to work. It's not so much one person as a single point of failure. If there were enough drivers with redundancy then it would not matter.
Some tube lines in London have been closed lately due to unavailability of staff. Not sure if it’s drivers specifically but could be a reason to consider this.
Good point and down to cost, which is ironic as you have a system built and used mostly from people going to and from work and they are focusing upon reducing the wrong job in that equation is a very fair perspective.
Does make you wonder, if years/decades later they fully automate it, turns out cost way more than just keeping human drivers. Equally even if on paper for TFL it breaks even cost wise or cheaper, those people will still need jobs/income and may well be case of shifting that problem elsewhere in the governmental chain of things.
The stated reason in the article is largely: to avoid strikes. Though the article also argues that this just pushes the power to strike on to other places.
In the uk, train drivers unions are one of the last meaningful unions left and the right wing government hates that.
Also, London has a left wing mayor and a very good public transport system. The right wing government hate both the mayor (he's heir apparent to lead the party nationally) and the concept of public transport.
That's also the real reason private train operators were bailed out but public TfL was been hung out to dry...
Germany for example has about 35.000 train conductors. Subways are just an obvious first step. Add renewable energy to the equation and you can build a fantastic system running 24/7 without any waiting for trains.
Barcelona has two fully automated lines (AFAIK, there might be some remote control) L9 and L10. They were built already with the idea of having no driver.
Nontheless when a strike is in effect their frequency go down too. AFAIK it was negotiated this way between the unions and the subway company.
Here are a couple of articles in Catalan about different strikes and the reduction of trains in all lines.
I think the Docklands Light Railway (DLR) model is fine. The author seems to be as ignorant of "machine learning" as he claims the general public to be of the concept of "driverless trains". For those unaware of what the DLR is, it's a 35 year old driverless train system in London with a human "train captain" who is basically like any other passenger but that can also operate the doors and override things if needed. You don't need machine learning and AI to drive a train on a one dimensional track, just a half decent team of Engineers to design something properly.
Yes the "train captains" can strike but they are far more replaceable than highly trained and very highly paid human train drivers. The evidence is clear, the DLR is far less affected by industrial action than regular tubes. Industrial action is so rare on the DLR that it becomes delicious news when it does happen: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/strike-proof-do...
They speak of "myth", but there are many cities with driverless subway trains (e.g., in neighboring Paris, but definitely in more than the four "exceptions" that they mention). Instead of such grandiose philosophical statements, which are ultimately empty, they could make an argument based on facts and observations from the reality.
It's a long article, and I didn't read everything, but I guess this is one of the main points:
> Yet unless you are removing humans from the entire operation of the network, all you are actually doing is shuffling pieces, not removing them from the board. Station staff can strike, and do. DLR ‘Train Captains’ can strike, and do. Control centre staff can strike, and do. Signallers can strike, and do.
> As plenty of mainline railway franchisees have discovered, changing the relative responsibility of the roles doesn’t shift the balance of power between employer and employee. It simply alters which Union you need to negotiate with most
If something goes wrong in the middle of a 120 year old tunnel, 30 metres beneath the city, I want there to be a trained, responsible member of staff in place to manage the situation. It's that simple.
In train accidents, usually the first compositions are the most badly hit. The train driver is the most susceptible to die. You're better assisted by a remote operator...
Then you shouldn't use the tube, should you ? The argument that they are trained, responsible and competent is only used to justify their benefits. If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you.
And I want one man for each 20 people "trapped" underground. Scratch that. One man for each 5 users. All of them paid minimum wage and doing absolutely nothing for 99.9% of the time. Otherwise it's unsafe. It's that simple. (/s).
> There are over 100 metro systems in the world built before 2000. Of those, why have only four been converted to full automation?
Because the retrofits that the article details, no matter if installing platform doors, re-wiring infrastructure or replacing old carriages to actually enable consistent door positions, costs a lot of money, and public transport isn't at the top of public spending priority - car infrastructure is sucking up all the funds. Everywhere.
You want automated trains? Lobby your politicians to redistribute funding.
Interesting that they are doing the "Waterloo and City line" first and for background, that is a isolated line/train that just goes from Waterloo station to the City central. I used that many times in the past and out of all the lines, was more civilised - would have commuters line up along the platform were the doors would appear once the train stopped and really a contrast to other tube/train stations.
So for a first trial/go of converting existing stock/track - that I will agree is a perfect choice.
Now when they get to the circle line - that IMHO will be the hardest and as a commuter.
I just hope they build sensors that can handle that environment. Many memories of commuting and having my ears and nose covered in a layer of black soot. But then that's best read up about here: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/london-tube-dust
So to keep TfL afloat the government has to give them money and as part of that they have to spend a large amount of money investigating something most people don’t think is viable.
Seems like a good use of public funds.
Aside from the strikes, another aspect of automated subways is worth considering.
Most subway lines in Paris have a few minutes interval between one train leaving and the next arriving. On the automated ones, it sometimes gets down to ~30 seconds.
Seems automating the trains enables much higher frequencies, probably by eliminating human reaction times and reducing margins of error.
Now, other countries have that without automation… but I’m not sure I’ll ever live to see the day when people over here run their trains as efficiently as it is done in, say, Japan.
One key factor in Paris is that automated trains are more "aggressive" in closing doors right on schedule where human drivers would tend to wait one or 2 seconds because you have a lot of people getting onboard.One or 2 seconds doesn't seem much but it can ruin the whole schedule because if you do it on 2 stations then it can add to 4 seconds, and then the next train needs to brake or even stop and lose even more time, and it cascades etc. until you can't keep a super tight schedule.
It has even happened to me once that the station and trains were so packed that the train came, people barely had time to get out and the doors closed already, with not a single person able to go onboard before the doors closed. Obviously feels bad but helps train keep schedule and it is a net positive in the end, but I suppose it is psychologically tough for drivers who would have to have that kind of constraints, they would really feel like a machine.
I don't get why the train attendant has to be able to move the train. That's not required in the driverless systems I know. Either the train is unable to move and has to stop immediately, or it tries to drive to the next station, right? The only job then for the attendant is to guide the passengers to safety and watch out for unruly passengers. I know Nurembergs underground quite well and it just works. No platform doors and no attendants.
For the exceptional case that the train is unable to drive itself without an accident occurs a special team should be enough. I don't remember that it happened for the nuremberg underground.
Nuremberg is a small town where emergency personal, which can drive the train can be deployed quickly to all locations, without having lots of on call staff ready. Deploying this in London is a different challenge.
However I agree that with remote control the need should be mostly avoidable.
I don't understand why you can't have PEDs for multiple kinds of rolling stock. That is stated but never qualified. It seems like a tractable design problem considering there are a limited set of types of train you are serving.
This is not really a big issue for London, though. The vast majority of London Underground platforms only have one type of train serving them. The few exceptions (eg: parts of the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines) are mostly above ground and not the busiest parts of the network, so you could just skip the PEDs there and use manual door closing.
So, this article is about that GoA 4 is not reachable and thus you should not call it "driverless tube"?
Is that right or I am missing something?
When he writes that they looked at the system that Siemens provides, then I think I know the system, which is considered. The very same trains system is actually running here in my town for more than 10 years now. I think it should be deployed originally by 2006. But as any project in Germany, this was late to and as such was deployed in 2008.
Yes, it is not GoA4 but GoA3. Yes, it was a technically challenging. I personally know people who where involved in the project and specifically in the functional safety aspects. The first sensors were installed somewhere around the end of the last century on the lines that are run by the drivers to get experiences and to improve the safety system. At that time the system was somehow unique, because it was specifically design for retrofitting existing tubes. It is also designed from the beginning that driverless trains and trains with drivers can run in parallel on the very same rail, if needed, because some lines may share some parts of the rail system.
Yes, it is (only) GoA3, that means there is a central control room. There are actual people sitting monitoring and "supporting" the automated decisions. They are supporting in a sense, that if some situation occurs the system does not have an automated decision to, the operator can view a sequence and decide what to do. If the operator decides, that he is unable to decide remotely, he can sent an onsite operator. That means there are no (operating) people on the trains itself, they are only required at the platform.
This gives the benefit, that the number of trains currently running can be decreased or increased depending on demand without having the need for having drivers on standby. That makes personnel planing much more easier and can save costs. This is paid for with increased costs to run the technical system.
This is actually not cheap as well. Here in Nuremberg there are currently 3 lines. Line 1 is the oldest and still run by a driver. Line 2, the second oldest, was originally run by a driver but converted to be driverless. Line 3, the newest, started completely driverless. Line 2 and 3 largely share the same rails. Line 1 runs on their own rails. Only when maintenance is happening, then all lines share in some parts the very same rails. Because of Line 2, the system is mostly retrofit. The city decided a few years ago not to go driverless for line 1, because of the costs involved for retrofitting the complete line.
Besides the costs, there is also a benefit for the drivers to be driverless. I have some friends who used to be drivers. They say, this job is very very challenging when you are the whole time underground and basically most of the stations looking almost the same. After the second round you loose your mind and concentration, so that sometimes they announced the wrong way they where going. For the safety aspects that is even worse.
So going driverless or not is not a myth as such, only if you consider GoA4 as the only possible driverless. But the decision for or against is very complex and even can increase safety for the passengers, because the automation does no get tired.
I'll note that the actual title is (now?) "The Political Myth of the Driverless Tube Train" not merely "The Myth of the Driverless Tube Train"
And I'm sure that as a claim about politics "myth" may feel about right, but it clearly doesn't work as a technical claim and the article seems to hedge about whether that's what it wants to say.
It pokes Boris, former mayor (a role for which I felt he was well suited) and present Prime Minister (a role in which he's incapable) which is politics, but then it also talks about Grades of Automation, rolling stock upgrades, signalling, and Platform Edge Doors, which are technology not politics.
The sort of contradictions shown are effective for making Boris look foolish (compare Thatcher's pun "You Turn if you want to. The Lady's Not For Turning" to Boris having difficulty remembering what he answered on the same question yesterday...) but they have the reverse effect on matters of fact.
For example, we're reminded repeatedly that the London Underground is very old. But then we're also told, for a different reason, that the Docklands Light Railway is old too. A GoA 3 system, right there in London, operating very safely for decades. Complexity, we're told, is the enemy of automation, but the DLR has only become more complex, adding more branches, longer trains, newer service patterns.
Of course automation of the London Underground is also very old, it had one of the first GoA 2 automated railways in the world. When I was a child the Tube still had guards. If you're a New Yorker this probably seems unremarkable, but that guard is completely unnecessary in ordinary service there's barely enough work for a driver, let alone also needing a guard, and this role was abolished in the London Underground last century.
Safety considerations will make GoA 4 operation of the Deep Tube very difficult to deliver cost effectively in my lifetime. But in practice the objections to automation aren't about some hypothetical unsafe GoA 4 proposal, they're mostly about trying to ensure the RMT retains power in the capital by delaying real, practical projects that would mean London doesn't need so many of their extremely well compensated members.
Turnham Green is a particular red herring. If you've used Turnham Green you may not even be aware that Picadilly trains stop there, because in practice for most purposes they don't. They pass through but most don't stop. A future upgrade might make it practical to have all Picadilly trains once again stop at Turnham Green some day. Or not. Hardly the sort of show-stopper it's presented as in this piece.
In other places where there could be a clash, Selective Door Operation might resolve it. SDO is already used extensively on the London Underground for S-stock.
It's a reasonable sounding argument but I don't find it totally convincing.
Firstly, a big deal is made about the need for PEDs. The justification given is vague - essentially that the regulator would require them, because it's now "known" that PEDs are required, and the DLR doesn't have them because, well, really it should but we don't care enough to actually upgrade it. But new stuff must.
This looks like a case of creeping safetyism. If PEDs are really required for the acceptably safe operation of a railway then clearly both the DLR and LU must be considered unsafe, because the number of passenger-on-track or passenger-in-door situations that only a driver can solve seems very small indeed. In fact it's surely the case that platform attendants are better placed to observe these problems as they can easily look along the entire length of even a busy platform, whereas a driver must rely on a mirror. Saying automation "requires" PEDs is a bold statement given the successful and apparently safe operation of the DLR for decades, yet no evidence is provided beyond the opinion of the ORR, which as a regulator is hardly unbiased - they have zero incentive to make automation happen and every incentive not to.
The arguments about strikes also looks superficially reasonable, but I'm not sure it holds on closer inspection. Drivers have a lot of strike power because there are a lot of them and they require a lot of training, so they are impossible to replace as a bloc. Presumably a well automated railway would require only a much smaller number of people in the control room, and those people would require less training, as the software will be carefully checking their inputs and doing the bulk of the work. So if they did decide to strike then you could probably have teams in reserve or call up the manufacturers of the equipment and ask them to send over some of the engineers who built it, to temporarily operate the equipment and train up a new team of control room staff. The striking power would surely be much lower.
Even for physical maintenance staff, yes they can strike, but they can't immediately paralyze a live railway like drivers can. There's a limited amount of time for which a railway can operate without regular maintenance, and if the equipment is already in good condition, it seems likely that the railway can outlast the strikers. Also a lot of physical maintenance is not especially complex to train people on, so alternate workers could be found more easily.
The main reasons the Tube isn't being automated are clearly not that it's some sort of insurmountable challenge, at least not according to this article, but rather than automation has been conflated with general wide-reaching safety and simplification upgrades, based on a dubious argument that drivers are much safer for passengers than any automated system can be. I'm not at all sure that's true.
I'm sure an automated system can be built that is safe enough - the Elizabeth Line demonstrates that. But the reality is that upgrades cost a lot of money, and nobody wants to spend that money. That is what it boils down to.
With respect to attendants, they're mostly there on the busiest times at the busiest stations. Most of the time most platforms are largely unattended, and the driver is the only person present to take action unless you want to wait for the train to alert station staff to a situation that requires intervention.
If the solution to automate is to put in place attendants permanently on every platform I'm not convinced it'd serve much purpose.
With respect to the DLR, it's less than a year since the last time someone was killed by falling onto the tracks. While the DLR overall has a great safety record, it's far less crowded than several of the other lines. I don't think you'll get anyone willing to sign off on overriding the regulator there, given people have called for safety upgrades of the DLR too despite the few fatal accidents.
On your first point about PEDs, I think you've missed that there's an element of safety they offer that prevents non-accidents (often referred to as a "person under the train" or other euphemisms). These definitely happen on the DLR [0] , along with many other lines. Among other obvious repurcussions of these incidents, these often result in a line closure of at least a full commuting slot.
[+] [-] KineticLensman|4 years ago|reply
"...progress towards the conversion of at least one Underground line to Grade-of-Automation 3 (driverless, but with an on-board attendant, as on the Docklands Light Railway), subject to a viable business case and its statutory responsibilities."
They are only aiming to do one line, which just happens to meet a complex set of constraints outlined in the article. Doing the entire network would require a massive set of changes as outlined in the article (e.g. to rolling stock, platforms and signalling) to meet the safety requirements.
The requirement for an on-board attendant means that the driverless trains will still be at risk of strike action, in contrast to the line taken by some commenters here.
Note that the actual title is 'political myth'. The article suggests that the main reason for the change is to demonstrate political vision rather than, say, cost savings.
[+] [-] vladvasiliu|4 years ago|reply
That's true, although it might be a lot better than the current setup, if they're able to more easily replace that person (say, if they don't have to have specialised training).
I'm not familiar with TfL and their strike habits, but over here in strike-happy Paris, where conductors decide to stop driving on a whim, the automatic lines are practically never concerned [0]. They are, however, "level 4", as in there's no human present on board. They do require people at the control centre, though.
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[0] I say "practically" because while I don't remember there ever being any reduction of traffic, even during major national strikes, I don't take the metro that often and I may have missed some. Though I'm pretty confident that it would have made the headlines.
[+] [-] vidarh|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mavhc|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] me_me_me|4 years ago|reply
You need so few subway drivers/conductors that does it really matter if you need one per train?
Taxis are probably average a driver per 1.5 ish customers. Subway/train is hundreds.
This reminds me of optimisation of non critical code. Sure its nice, but the cost/benefit is just not there.
[+] [-] 627467|4 years ago|reply
In the city I live underground drivers hold ridiculous privileged (even compared to other underground workers) that allows positions to be effectively hereditary: children of drivers are more likely to get into the job than others.
[+] [-] lbriner|4 years ago|reply
Maintenance is crazy due to the short maintenance hours and therefore everyone getting paid enhanced rates to work 0:00 to 04:00. Significantly modernizing signalling and control would be expensive but would probably back back over time.
A few years back I was in a control room in a tube station and saw some steampunk looking machine that we assumed was related to the old destination boards on the station, which were long gone but the machine was still operational and left alone. Why? Because who would risk breaking something just to remove some random old piece of kit!
[+] [-] teknopaul|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] heidar|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Zenst|4 years ago|reply
Does make you wonder, if years/decades later they fully automate it, turns out cost way more than just keeping human drivers. Equally even if on paper for TFL it breaks even cost wise or cheaper, those people will still need jobs/income and may well be case of shifting that problem elsewhere in the governmental chain of things.
[+] [-] rocqua|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LatteLazy|4 years ago|reply
In the uk, train drivers unions are one of the last meaningful unions left and the right wing government hates that.
Also, London has a left wing mayor and a very good public transport system. The right wing government hate both the mayor (he's heir apparent to lead the party nationally) and the concept of public transport.
That's also the real reason private train operators were bailed out but public TfL was been hung out to dry...
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] allendoerfer|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] imgabe|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] JaumeGreen|4 years ago|reply
Barcelona has two fully automated lines (AFAIK, there might be some remote control) L9 and L10. They were built already with the idea of having no driver.
Nontheless when a strike is in effect their frequency go down too. AFAIK it was negotiated this way between the unions and the subway company.
Here are a couple of articles in Catalan about different strikes and the reduction of trains in all lines.
https://beteve.cat/mobilitat/vaga-metro-10-maig-amiant/
https://www.elpuntavui.cat/societat/article/5-societat/19353...
[+] [-] davidhyde|4 years ago|reply
Yes the "train captains" can strike but they are far more replaceable than highly trained and very highly paid human train drivers. The evidence is clear, the DLR is far less affected by industrial action than regular tubes. Industrial action is so rare on the DLR that it becomes delicious news when it does happen: https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/strike-proof-do...
[+] [-] enriquto|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] locallost|4 years ago|reply
> Yet unless you are removing humans from the entire operation of the network, all you are actually doing is shuffling pieces, not removing them from the board. Station staff can strike, and do. DLR ‘Train Captains’ can strike, and do. Control centre staff can strike, and do. Signallers can strike, and do.
> As plenty of mainline railway franchisees have discovered, changing the relative responsibility of the roles doesn’t shift the balance of power between employer and employee. It simply alters which Union you need to negotiate with most
[+] [-] dwighttk|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] e17|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jusssi|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hobbes78|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KineticLensman|4 years ago|reply
There will be. The article states that the trains will still have an onboard attendant.
[+] [-] lbriner|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] himinlomax|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bob_theslob646|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] NVHacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] AshamedCaptain|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mschuster91|4 years ago|reply
Because the retrofits that the article details, no matter if installing platform doors, re-wiring infrastructure or replacing old carriages to actually enable consistent door positions, costs a lot of money, and public transport isn't at the top of public spending priority - car infrastructure is sucking up all the funds. Everywhere.
You want automated trains? Lobby your politicians to redistribute funding.
[+] [-] Zenst|4 years ago|reply
So for a first trial/go of converting existing stock/track - that I will agree is a perfect choice.
Now when they get to the circle line - that IMHO will be the hardest and as a commuter.
I just hope they build sensors that can handle that environment. Many memories of commuting and having my ears and nose covered in a layer of black soot. But then that's best read up about here: https://www.wired.co.uk/article/london-tube-dust
[+] [-] JamesBaxter|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ElFitz|4 years ago|reply
Most subway lines in Paris have a few minutes interval between one train leaving and the next arriving. On the automated ones, it sometimes gets down to ~30 seconds.
Seems automating the trains enables much higher frequencies, probably by eliminating human reaction times and reducing margins of error.
Now, other countries have that without automation… but I’m not sure I’ll ever live to see the day when people over here run their trains as efficiently as it is done in, say, Japan.
[+] [-] mijamo|4 years ago|reply
It has even happened to me once that the station and trains were so packed that the train came, people barely had time to get out and the doors closed already, with not a single person able to go onboard before the doors closed. Obviously feels bad but helps train keep schedule and it is a net positive in the end, but I suppose it is psychologically tough for drivers who would have to have that kind of constraints, they would really feel like a machine.
[+] [-] jbkkd|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mijoharas|4 years ago|reply
https://web.archive.org/web/20210609102038/https://www.londo...
[+] [-] LeanderK|4 years ago|reply
For the exceptional case that the train is unable to drive itself without an accident occurs a special team should be enough. I don't remember that it happened for the nuremberg underground.
[+] [-] johannes1234321|4 years ago|reply
However I agree that with remote control the need should be mostly avoidable.
[+] [-] based2|4 years ago|reply
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_syst%C3%A8mes_de_m%C...
[+] [-] passtheglass|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Reason077|4 years ago|reply
Here's an article about it (why Vancouver can't have PEDs): https://dailyhive.com/vancouver/translink-skytrain-station-p...
This is not really a big issue for London, though. The vast majority of London Underground platforms only have one type of train serving them. The few exceptions (eg: parts of the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines) are mostly above ground and not the busiest parts of the network, so you could just skip the PEDs there and use manual door closing.
[+] [-] petermcneeley|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ricardobayes|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] PinguTS|4 years ago|reply
Is that right or I am missing something?
When he writes that they looked at the system that Siemens provides, then I think I know the system, which is considered. The very same trains system is actually running here in my town for more than 10 years now. I think it should be deployed originally by 2006. But as any project in Germany, this was late to and as such was deployed in 2008.
Yes, it is not GoA4 but GoA3. Yes, it was a technically challenging. I personally know people who where involved in the project and specifically in the functional safety aspects. The first sensors were installed somewhere around the end of the last century on the lines that are run by the drivers to get experiences and to improve the safety system. At that time the system was somehow unique, because it was specifically design for retrofitting existing tubes. It is also designed from the beginning that driverless trains and trains with drivers can run in parallel on the very same rail, if needed, because some lines may share some parts of the rail system.
Yes, it is (only) GoA3, that means there is a central control room. There are actual people sitting monitoring and "supporting" the automated decisions. They are supporting in a sense, that if some situation occurs the system does not have an automated decision to, the operator can view a sequence and decide what to do. If the operator decides, that he is unable to decide remotely, he can sent an onsite operator. That means there are no (operating) people on the trains itself, they are only required at the platform.
This gives the benefit, that the number of trains currently running can be decreased or increased depending on demand without having the need for having drivers on standby. That makes personnel planing much more easier and can save costs. This is paid for with increased costs to run the technical system.
This is actually not cheap as well. Here in Nuremberg there are currently 3 lines. Line 1 is the oldest and still run by a driver. Line 2, the second oldest, was originally run by a driver but converted to be driverless. Line 3, the newest, started completely driverless. Line 2 and 3 largely share the same rails. Line 1 runs on their own rails. Only when maintenance is happening, then all lines share in some parts the very same rails. Because of Line 2, the system is mostly retrofit. The city decided a few years ago not to go driverless for line 1, because of the costs involved for retrofitting the complete line.
Besides the costs, there is also a benefit for the drivers to be driverless. I have some friends who used to be drivers. They say, this job is very very challenging when you are the whole time underground and basically most of the stations looking almost the same. After the second round you loose your mind and concentration, so that sometimes they announced the wrong way they where going. For the safety aspects that is even worse.
So going driverless or not is not a myth as such, only if you consider GoA4 as the only possible driverless. But the decision for or against is very complex and even can increase safety for the passengers, because the automation does no get tired.
[+] [-] NVHacker|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] tialaramex|4 years ago|reply
And I'm sure that as a claim about politics "myth" may feel about right, but it clearly doesn't work as a technical claim and the article seems to hedge about whether that's what it wants to say.
It pokes Boris, former mayor (a role for which I felt he was well suited) and present Prime Minister (a role in which he's incapable) which is politics, but then it also talks about Grades of Automation, rolling stock upgrades, signalling, and Platform Edge Doors, which are technology not politics.
The sort of contradictions shown are effective for making Boris look foolish (compare Thatcher's pun "You Turn if you want to. The Lady's Not For Turning" to Boris having difficulty remembering what he answered on the same question yesterday...) but they have the reverse effect on matters of fact.
For example, we're reminded repeatedly that the London Underground is very old. But then we're also told, for a different reason, that the Docklands Light Railway is old too. A GoA 3 system, right there in London, operating very safely for decades. Complexity, we're told, is the enemy of automation, but the DLR has only become more complex, adding more branches, longer trains, newer service patterns.
Of course automation of the London Underground is also very old, it had one of the first GoA 2 automated railways in the world. When I was a child the Tube still had guards. If you're a New Yorker this probably seems unremarkable, but that guard is completely unnecessary in ordinary service there's barely enough work for a driver, let alone also needing a guard, and this role was abolished in the London Underground last century.
Safety considerations will make GoA 4 operation of the Deep Tube very difficult to deliver cost effectively in my lifetime. But in practice the objections to automation aren't about some hypothetical unsafe GoA 4 proposal, they're mostly about trying to ensure the RMT retains power in the capital by delaying real, practical projects that would mean London doesn't need so many of their extremely well compensated members.
Turnham Green is a particular red herring. If you've used Turnham Green you may not even be aware that Picadilly trains stop there, because in practice for most purposes they don't. They pass through but most don't stop. A future upgrade might make it practical to have all Picadilly trains once again stop at Turnham Green some day. Or not. Hardly the sort of show-stopper it's presented as in this piece.
In other places where there could be a clash, Selective Door Operation might resolve it. SDO is already used extensively on the London Underground for S-stock.
[+] [-] thu2111|4 years ago|reply
Firstly, a big deal is made about the need for PEDs. The justification given is vague - essentially that the regulator would require them, because it's now "known" that PEDs are required, and the DLR doesn't have them because, well, really it should but we don't care enough to actually upgrade it. But new stuff must.
This looks like a case of creeping safetyism. If PEDs are really required for the acceptably safe operation of a railway then clearly both the DLR and LU must be considered unsafe, because the number of passenger-on-track or passenger-in-door situations that only a driver can solve seems very small indeed. In fact it's surely the case that platform attendants are better placed to observe these problems as they can easily look along the entire length of even a busy platform, whereas a driver must rely on a mirror. Saying automation "requires" PEDs is a bold statement given the successful and apparently safe operation of the DLR for decades, yet no evidence is provided beyond the opinion of the ORR, which as a regulator is hardly unbiased - they have zero incentive to make automation happen and every incentive not to.
The arguments about strikes also looks superficially reasonable, but I'm not sure it holds on closer inspection. Drivers have a lot of strike power because there are a lot of them and they require a lot of training, so they are impossible to replace as a bloc. Presumably a well automated railway would require only a much smaller number of people in the control room, and those people would require less training, as the software will be carefully checking their inputs and doing the bulk of the work. So if they did decide to strike then you could probably have teams in reserve or call up the manufacturers of the equipment and ask them to send over some of the engineers who built it, to temporarily operate the equipment and train up a new team of control room staff. The striking power would surely be much lower.
Even for physical maintenance staff, yes they can strike, but they can't immediately paralyze a live railway like drivers can. There's a limited amount of time for which a railway can operate without regular maintenance, and if the equipment is already in good condition, it seems likely that the railway can outlast the strikers. Also a lot of physical maintenance is not especially complex to train people on, so alternate workers could be found more easily.
The main reasons the Tube isn't being automated are clearly not that it's some sort of insurmountable challenge, at least not according to this article, but rather than automation has been conflated with general wide-reaching safety and simplification upgrades, based on a dubious argument that drivers are much safer for passengers than any automated system can be. I'm not at all sure that's true.
[+] [-] vidarh|4 years ago|reply
With respect to attendants, they're mostly there on the busiest times at the busiest stations. Most of the time most platforms are largely unattended, and the driver is the only person present to take action unless you want to wait for the train to alert station staff to a situation that requires intervention.
If the solution to automate is to put in place attendants permanently on every platform I'm not convinced it'd serve much purpose.
With respect to the DLR, it's less than a year since the last time someone was killed by falling onto the tracks. While the DLR overall has a great safety record, it's far less crowded than several of the other lines. I don't think you'll get anyone willing to sign off on overriding the regulator there, given people have called for safety upgrades of the DLR too despite the few fatal accidents.
[+] [-] JoshuaRedmond|4 years ago|reply
[0] - multiple incidents on this FOI request from 2012, and I'm sure there will be more recent data available https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/persons_under_trains