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Post by madandy on Jul 21, 2012 11:34:43 GMT
Ok, just joined so I'll start with this subject and two things bugging me over this.
The reason for driverless trains is to save money on labour costs; ok. I can swallow that. The objections relate to the need/perception (and I'm not casting an opinion or getting political) that the lack of a responsible human presence on board puts people in jeopardy in the event of an incident in a tunnel on a train packed with hundreds over an internal length of hundred of yards etc etc (and to put anyone else like a train captain on defeats the object of the exercise).
Ok, I can see where Boris is coming from and can accept and respect his dismissal of the "safety" arguments.
However, what gets at me is this. The same Boris is obsessed with re-introducing open platform buses requiring a second crew member. Among his arguments for it are the safety of passengers and as a deterrent to potential criminals etc etc.
So my question is this. How can these two policies be compatible? Buses so not go in tunnels and are only one unit long. If such a vehicle in Central London really needs the expense of a second operative how can it be that an eight carriage train in a tunnel can manage with none?
The other issue with driverless trains is that of things like one unders and obstruction. If someone collapses onto a track or a tree falls in the open then there is nobody to slam the brakes on when a driver might pull up in time.
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Post by crusty54 on Jul 21, 2012 13:04:54 GMT
the trains running on LO have a mobile guard/conductor in much the same way as the DLR.
This system could be a halfway house and would mean that the doors would have to be closed before a train leaves a platform
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 21, 2012 16:11:45 GMT
the trains running on LO have a mobile guard/conductor in much the same way as the DLR. This system could be a halfway house and would mean that the doors would have to be closed before a train leaves a platform I think LO trains have drivers cabs and therefore drivers whereas on the DLR the trains are automatically driven ? I don't think LO operations are similar to the DLR as one is light rail and the other a proper train.
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Post by crusty54 on Jul 21, 2012 17:14:01 GMT
the trains running on LO have a mobile guard/conductor in much the same way as the DLR. This system could be a halfway house and would mean that the doors would have to be closed before a train leaves a platform I think LO trains have drivers cabs and therefore drivers whereas on the DLR the trains are automatically driven ? I don't think LO operations are similar to the DLR as one is light rail and the other a proper train. They have both a driver and guard and the guard has panels beside doors along the train as on the DLR
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Post by andypurk on Jul 21, 2012 19:49:16 GMT
Although the service may become Bakerloo only, LO are likely to still to need access to Willesden Depot and any system would also need to be compatible with whatever the Metropolitan use from Watford High Street - Watford Junction section. A more likely scenario would be for the Bakerloo to be ATO from Elephant and Castle to Queens Park and then swap over to some other system. Okay let's avoid confusion, ATO is trains driving themselves with a TOp monitoring from the cab (and then driving it when it breaks down, when it rains or needs to go in the depot, etc) which is what we have on the Central, Victoria and Jubilee and will be coming to the Northern and Sub Surface lines in the next few years. What is planned for the Bakerloo, Piccadilly, W&C and Central is ATC, where the trains drive themselves monitored from a Control Room. Under the current proposals as I understand it any manual driving on the Bakerloo would be in an emergency rather than a regular function. That's not my understanding of the difference between ATO and ATC. ATO is just concerned with the automatic driving of the train, by whatever means and may or may not need a driver as well. ATC is concerned with the automatic operation of the whole line, including signalling, timetables, intervals between trains etc. ATO is a part of ATC. So the DLR is as much an ATO system as the Victoria line, despite the absence of a driver at the front end most of the time. Metro line 14, in Paris is also ATO, despite there being no on train staff at all. All three are also ATC, as the trains are told what to do and directed where to go by external inputs. What is planned to change on LU is that more functions, which currently need a driver at the front, will become automatic. Or because he hasn't been briefed by his minions?
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Post by causton on Jul 21, 2012 20:56:55 GMT
They have both a driver and guard and the guard has panels beside doors along the train as on the DLR The DLR does *not* have a driver.
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rincew1nd
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Post by rincew1nd on Jul 21, 2012 21:13:52 GMT
They have Train Captains don't they?
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Post by crusty54 on Jul 21, 2012 21:15:25 GMT
They have both a driver and guard and the guard has panels beside doors along the train as on the DLR The DLR does *not* have a driver. I use the DLR every working day and know how the trains work - the point I am trying to make is that it would be possible to go cabless and have somebody on the train to control access & egress and ensure that doors are closed before leaving a station
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Post by Jerome H on Jul 21, 2012 23:18:01 GMT
I find that one of the biggest problem with the comparision to the dlr is the curves in some of the platforms that prevent a captain from safetly sending the trains off at some tube stations.
In further arguements, how crowded is the DLR compared to the tube at rush hour? Surely you can't expect a captain to be able to cross a tube train to get to the side of the train that the doors open in rush hour traffic. I think the concept of a cab works well because of rush hour, (plus the CCTV and tunnel vision). How would a captain work on the JLE, where the PEDs would have to be reprogrammed to allow the Captain's door, or whatever its called.
I think I'm ranting on though...
EDITED to fix a little grammar problem.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2012 8:40:19 GMT
Nooooooooooo. Not Train Captain, they haven't been TCs for years, they are Passenger Service Agents. Only ignorant politicians and sad journos like BBC’s Tom Edwards or everyone at the Evening subStandard call them Train Captains.
As mentioned here countless times the problems with PSAs or Train Attendants as they will be titled on LUL will be the length of the trains, the density of crowding during the peak and the curvature of some platforms like Bank on the Central where you cannot see both ends of the train from any point. The only way I can see of getting around this is either more station staff on the platforms or someone permanently glued to a CCTV screen either at the station or the line control room. If we’re relying on sensitive edge we could have dwell times stretching into infinity as every time the doors reopen someone tries to squeeze on.
The trains will come with some sort of detection device but we won’t find out until they start trials on the W&C whether it can tell the difference between a person fallen on the track and a copy of the Metro. Service suspended due to pigeon at Loughton?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2012 8:42:25 GMT
The DLR gets rammed at rush hour too with the passenger service agent sitting at the front using mirrors to dispatch the train safely.
Whilst the member of staff on board can drive the train in emergencies - I don't think people see them as train drivers.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 22, 2012 8:54:19 GMT
That's not my understanding of the difference between ATO and ATC. ATO is just concerned with the automatic driving of the train, by whatever means and may or may not need a driver as well. ATC is concerned with the automatic operation of the whole line, including signalling, timetables, intervals between trains etc. ATO is a part of ATC. So the DLR is as much an ATO system as the Victoria line, despite the absence of a driver at the front end most of the time. Metro line 14, in Paris is also ATO, despite there being no on train staff at all. All three are also ATC, as the trains are told what to do and directed where to go by external inputs. What is planned to change on LU is that more functions, which currently need a driver at the front, will become automatic. I’m just using the terms in the way LUL seem to be using them, that might not be how the rest of the world uses them but then LUL seems to have little concept of an outside world. An easier distinction is cabbed and cabless, one which requires a human presence in the front and one that doesn’t. By the start of the next decade if everything goes accoring to plan the Bakerloo and W&C will be cabless, the Piccadilly will have a mixture of cabbed and cabless and the Central Line will be just starting conversion. All the other lines will be cabbed in ATO.
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Fahad
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Post by Fahad on Jul 24, 2012 15:09:33 GMT
The trains will come with some sort of detection device but we won’t find out until they start trials on the W&C whether it can tell the difference between a person fallen on the track and a copy of the Metro. Service suspended due to pigeon at Loughton? Thermal imaging cameras can tell the difference between people and Metros or pigeons, although I guess rats could stump them. Detection based on size of object and heat?
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jul 24, 2012 15:14:28 GMT
Thermal imaging cameras can tell the difference between people and Metros or pigeons, although I guess rats could stump them. Detection based on size of object and heat? In the end it will all come down to cost, on past form LUL will go for the cheapest option available, it won't work but they will persist with it because they don't want to admit they don't have a clue what they are doing and end up spending far more getting the thing to work than they would have had they gone for the more expensive option in the first place.
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castlebar
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Post by castlebar on Jul 24, 2012 19:25:00 GMT
aslefshrugged IS spot on with this one. If something fails, rather than admit failure, throw more money at it has always been the order of the day. If something fails, try something different is never considered. Extending the Central to W Ruislip rather than to Ickenham Hillingdon & Uxbridge is a historic example of cheapest option thinking. It has been predominant in ALL public transport thinking since about 1919. Marples/Beeching acted on the principle that it was cheaper to close than develop, and then Marples' private business (sorry, his wife's as he'd given her his shareholding), could "prove how more efficient" private business was, (as private business didn't have to fund its own roadbuilding programme). Always go for "cheap" even if it means importing foreign rolling stock and shutting British factories. It's not often that I agree with aslefshrugged, but this time he's 100% on target with his comment.
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mrfs42
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Post by mrfs42 on Jul 24, 2012 21:20:48 GMT
Extending the Central to W Ruislip rather than to Ickenham Hillingdon & Uxbridge is a historic example of cheapest option thinking. That is simply not true, believe me. Possibly a subject for a fresh thread.
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Ben
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Post by Ben on Jul 25, 2012 2:03:33 GMT
I wouldn't say thats strictly true of Beeching; he did recommend the development and upgrade of trunk routes after all; its worth speculating that might have implied raising speed limits and electrification. Course this didn't fit into other's plans! But the irony of still having a large mileage of intercity services using deisel shouldn't be ignored.
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