Boris demands TfL agree to Driverless Trains

It could be that the system used within the depot is more basic than on the "main" line.  A bit like the old Post Office railway pre-visitor attraction status, the cost of signalling versus the cost of any incident including teh resulting damage and delays could be weighed up without having to take into account the possibility of death/injury, and the trap points did their job.  I don't think the ability of the DLR system to run trains fully automatically is in question as it happens already; the real issues revolve around other matters such as where staff should most usefully be located to deal with problems, the need for platform edge doors or other human intervention based on the particular environment and so on.

The Victoria Line has been driverless since the beginning. The train operator basically does the duties the guard used to do. He does not accelerate the train or brake it. There are no doors on the platform and if a potential suicide jumps in front of the train he can only push the emergency brake and the outcome would be marginally less.

Passengers stand on BR platforms with trains passing at 100mph and no one asks for platform doors. Nothing is risk free with moving objects.

Just to throw in something else my contact says the open stations are going to be left unmanned. They often were in my time on the District Line post 1993.

At the end of the day the platform edge doors requirement can be dropped if those with decision-making ability decide, so I don’t think that necessarily guarantees driverless won’t happen.

However the DLR really isn’t quite the shining example that it’s made out to be. They’ve had a few nasty incidents over the years, including where the lack of someone at the front of the train made a material difference to the outcome. I’ve been on plenty of DLR trains where the train captain ends up having to manipulate their way through a crowded train to reach the front, and then ends up perched awkwardly over someone’s feet or luggage whilst carrying out a safety-critical task. They have the benefit of being largely open-air and all their tunnels have a side walkway.

And of course the moment you have someone on the train, whatever their exact job description is, you’re straight into the territory of duty schedules, rosters and the like, which is one of the main benefits of getting staff off the train entirely.

As you rightly say the driver’s role is more about applying procedures, safety management and fault finding than physically moving the train from A to B. We may all understand that, however evidently Boris doesn’t.

I’ve said before that I don’t believe driverless trains are worthwhile - it’s taken 50 years to get to where we are with attended ATO, and even that’s by no means perfect. But as I’ve also said I fully expect the political powers that be to have some go at attempting it. I don’t think it’s something for perhaps all but the very youngest drivers to need to worry too much about.

Another issue is that such projects have such a long lead-time that they outlive the lifespan of any politician by many years. SSR resignalling is an extreme example, which has spanned three mayors (and more if you measure it by mayoral terms!) and five prime ministers. As for LU managing directors, I think we’ve all lost count of how many of them there have been in that timespan...

Boris is the sort of politician who seems to be prepared to have a go on a whim though, which is presumably why we have a relatively small fleet of Boris Buses floating round.

Call me cynical, but over here on the Bakerloo line that time forgot, the notion of driverless trains anytime soon is a bit of a running joke.

So far we have been waiting 5 years for cup holders in the cab, 2 years for our fancy new LED headlights, the new dot matrix and digital announcer is delayed indefinitely but we did get shiny new LED's in the signals recently.

Everyone at the depot is not particularly concerned for the foreseeable future.

On the trains that I build*, there is a sloping surface built into the master controller ** surround; when I asked what it was for, it was apparently to stop drivers putting their cups of tea there, and liquids dropping into the mechanism. There is a cup holder la few inches away.

* Much as I pretend to, I don't actually build them myself, just buy parts for the factory
** the drivers speed / brake control, in case anyone was wondering

Sorry, back on topic :-)

Sorry I have no desire to add to the political dynamic in this thread.

But as a passenger my only real concern is that going forward TFL do endeavour to purchase rolling stock which is less likely to get involved in an accident.

Over time it has become abundantly clear that computers are now amazingly good at doing boring repetitive stuff - indeed far better than us humans who, to be honest, do make mistakes from time to time.

You only need to see all those car crash video programmes on TV to realise just how bad some people are at simple tasks like obeying speed limits or red lights. I doubt many of them actually set out with the express intention of appearing on Car Crash TV but the fact that people mess up, really does make the idea of letting a well programmed micro chip take over virtually all routine train operations seem quite attractive.

The latest RAIB update on the recent "near miss" on the Chiltern line shows how even a well trained "professional" can make mistakes.

If Boris is really saying they are ready to give TFL unlimited funds to go out and replace all their rolling stock, then surely it is time to call their bluff and send him a bill to replace the entire TFL/LU fleet.

Please, please, please give London more fully automated trains just like the Victoria line, BUT please ensure that there is also someone sitting up front able to react to stuff which no amount of computer control can prevent - like dozy bankers falling onto the tracks whilst focused on their iThing or total idiots deciding to drill a piling shaft straight through a tunnel roof. That sounds like the best of both worlds for me as a mere commuter and if there is an offer of free money from Government then why not take it?

I don’t think the safety record of LU’s legacy signalling can really be criticised. We have to go back many years to find a case where something signalling-related has contributed to a serious outcome - I may be overlooking something however I think Holborn in the early 1980s is the most recent such incident, and that was more down to the signalling being to old standards. Most incidents since have been where procedures haven’t been followed correctly, and that could happen on an ATP railway just as easily. ATP does give a benefit in preventing overspeeding, but again LU has managed this risk well over the years.

ATP particularly something like Seltrac transfers quite a bit of liability on to the signallers, such that you can have one well-worked signaller dealing with quite a lot during a failure. Indeed DLR controllers seem to have a very heavy workload when I’ve heard them in action during a failure.

Driverless trains have been proposed for the Waterloo & City Line, and would be cheap to implement. The stock is there already.

There is more to going driverless than just having the train driving itself, the train has to recognise what is preventing a door shutting, is it someone who is slow and elderly or is it a drink can, 

I needs to be able to trip and reset its own MCB's and other defects must be remotely manageable, current trains on the W&C don't have these abilities.

There's no mysticism about driverless trains, either.
Some major cities already have them, to some extent. Glasgow is about to introduce them.
Johnson is proposing for London nothing more than what already exists elsewhere.
He is being criticised for what he is, not what he wants.

I don't think Boris is saying tomorrow; just the commitment. By the way what is the career path for a train operator. Is it direct recruitment, push buttons on the train for the next 47 years on the same line then retire. Where do the controllers, train crew managers (Yardmaster), instructors at the training centre come from.

But if he's saying that, it's just meaningless, isn't it?

Driver-less trains have been mooted for a very long time. I think it's reasonable to say that lu/tfl are in a meaningful way 'committed' to driver-less trains.

They will happen when:

TFL have a billion of so spare cash available.
All the required technologies are available.
All the systems, electronic, mechanical, and human, have been designed.
All those technologies and systems have been prototyped, tested, and proved.
All the relevant health and safety authorities have been satisfied.
The working systems have been specified, the work tendered, contracts signed, final designs approved, hardware and software manufactured and everything implemented.

True, some work has already been done, but a timescale for all the above is so vague as to be meaningless. The prime minister has said nothing substantive.