Driverless Testing on the Jubilee Line

Over in Singapore, half of the metro lines don't have a driver or any staff on board and it doesn't feel unsafe. The only staff seen are at the ticket barriers.

While I admit that the tunnels were built to a larger size, thus make it easier to detrain, the RMT should come over to Singapore and realise that the 'safety' issues are not an issue.

Fully unstaffed / driverless urban metro trains have been running for decades.

Lille in France was one of the first cities - its VAL system opened in the early 1980's.

I can also recall travelling on the Vancouver Canada Skytrain which was also a brand new system and opened in the mid 1980's. Unlike the French VAL in Lille, this Canadian system does not have platform screen doors, it uses other systems to detect intrusion on to the tracks.

It did not worry me that these systems were unstaffed. The same comment applies to airport people movers which we have here in the UK, although I did once see someone almost become trapped between the train and platform doors - this was on the former Birmingham Maglev system.

I think that in part the concern about fully unstaffed trains here in London is that (as a general theme) the small profile tube tunnels were not built for emergency evacuation by unaccompanied passengers and whilst the subsurface network has larger tunnels these too do not have emergency facilities. Oh and imagine passengers on their own decision deciding to evacuate whilst trains are still travelling on the adjacent track!!!

Having someone in a control room barking messages on the PA (which I've experienced in a few cities) is no substitute to panicking passengers for the calming influence of a real member of staff on the train with everyone. Even if the emergency instructions being given to passengers are the same.

Simon

Well because it's actually quite unclear to me how to the DLR still works really.

It would be very difficult for a person standing there closing the doors to function on rush hour tube. For one thing, the trains are exceptionally crowded - how would they do their job? How would they get from one side of the carriage to the other, how would they get at the door controls? You'd need a guard's bar like you had in the old days, but then that takes away passenger space, abnegating the advantages of removing the cab.

And how would you see the whole platform. Even on an arrow straight platform I think it would be difficult, as they get very crowded, your two eyes would be as good as useless from the carriage. On a curvy platform like Bank it'd be literally impossible. So you'd need some CCTV.

All this, but unlike on the ATO lines you've thrown away your cab with its MCBs, its cut out switches, its diagnostics computer, its secluded environment for doing the job properly, liaising with line control, its facilities for driving the train in exceptional circumstances in peace and safety, without having to turf customers off their seats, its emergency stop button so you don't have to worry about that. You've also probably not trained someone to be able to do all the defect handling a proper train operator can do.

It's the worst of both worlds.

So if you're already making a special little enclosed space for the train captain with CCTV monitors and door controls, why not put them in a desk, add an emergency stop button, a TBC (just in case), MCBs, cut-out switches and other facilities for defect handling, a door to keep out the riff-raff and bob's your uncle, ATO.

But if you don't want that, I'm not sure what real use Jimbo is gonna be on a rush hour Central line train. Off peak things might be a little different, they can do revenue inspection duties, maybe provide a point of contact, perhaps add to the sense of passenger security like your guards on the big railway, but if you're LUL and you're trying to save money, and you don't really like having staff anyway, and you've spent all this money on DTO-capable trains, why would you spend £36,000 (approximate DLR PSA's yearly salary on 2014, I'm sorry, I don't have up-to-date figures off-hand) on a uniformed passenger?

We all marvelled at the automatic trains running Woodford-Hainault in the 60s. We are half a century on from that. Are we not?

The test the RMT are talking about never took place. Thales tried to slip the testing in between lots of other tests. My colleague spotted what was about to happen and refused to perform the test so it never took place. It was a very underhanded way that the test was put into the programme hoping we wouldn't notice and has been sent up the food chain. The test involved moving the train in ATO without any keys in or anyone monitoring the train out of the platform.

Hong Kong's Airport People Mover is an automated four car MTR train railway, with no drivers on board, but with full height Platform Screen Doors, and has been operating smoothly since 1998, some Eighteen years on a daily basis. The trains are even branded MTR. It can be made to work, even in an environment where unfamiliar passengers are the norm, as in the case of Hong Kong Airport.

Southern's ceiling panel failure shows how and why full automation and destaffing is wrong, everywhere. No first aiders! And I call rollocks to your 100% safe; nothing is 100% safe.