It’s war, apparently…
But Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said: “The RMT will not allow Tube safety to be sacrificed on the altar of driverless operation and we are geared up and ready to go to war on this one.”
Mick Whelan, leader of the drivers union Aslef, said introducing driverless Tube trains would lead to “all-out war”.
The Docklands light railway has operated driver-less trains for a while. While I would never get into a driver-less car, a fixed transit system is a different matter as it is controlled centrally without the chaotic environment of the roads. There is no logical reason that a train could not be operated perfectly safely using the signalling system and controlled from a control centre.
Whelan and Crow are simply being Luddites here. What they really mean is that they want to protect the jobs that will go – and with it, a reduced power-base. Safety has nothing to do with it, whereas politics has everything to do with it. It is not – or it damned well shouldn’t be – up to the unions to “allow” or not the introduction of technology. That is a matter for the business concerned not fat-cat union bosses..
Agreed.
A thought occurred to me after the last discussion about driverless cars. If driverless cars were the norm then the roads would be a whole lot less chaotic. I could see a system where all cars were computer controlled working, but mixing human and robot drivers together would have many more potential problems. I can’t see any way that robot controlled motorcycles could be made to work either. In any case, I actually enjoy driving, driverless cars surely only appeal to those who find driving to be a chore.
Crowe is smarter than thought. He has successfully delayed driverless trains long enough for the travelling public to have lost all trust in technology, DLR notwithstanding.
They have recently extended the U-Bahn, here, from Unter den Linden to the “Government” quarter.
This line is unmanned…. or WAS.
After many complaints, they now have a driver in every cab. He DOES nothing, except read a book, or play on his Play station, but the public would have none of this “driverless train” stuff.
The Victoria line was intended to be driverless so the idea isn’t new.
As to mixing driverless cars and manned cars, that must be a bit like those horror films we see of people interacting with automatic half-barrier level crossings!
DLR is mostly above-ground & where it isn’t there are walkways parallel to the trains at all times.
It was DESIGNED FROM THE START TO BE “DRIVERLESS”
Just a teensy-weensy slight difference between that and the 150 / 110 – year old “tube system, with no walkways, very tight tunnels, platforms on curves, some of them very tight too (Think “Bank”).
Here you would be trying to retro-fit full automation, with provision for as complete safety as possible, without increasing overcrowding.
Not going to work, not going to happen.
The other problem of course, is drunks, jumpers, small children & overcrowding on platforms, when there is a machine driving the train – obstruction/object-detection sensors would help, of course, but …
NOT an easy problem to solve, actually.
HINT
Start HERE:
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/driverless-trains-piccadilly/
For a properly infoprmed discussion.
While there’s no compelling safety or operational reason for requiring a driver in the cab of a Tube train and the DLR approach could in theory be used, it isn’t without difficulty.
Presumably there will still be a requirement to have a member of staff on the train (as is the case on the DLR). The trouble is that on a packed Tube train there is no sensible location for this member of staff to stand and their capability to move up and down the train would be severely limited by the congested environment. Providing a cab for them therefore seems logical.
Having trains totally unstaffed doesn’t seem compatible with the Tube. So far as I’m aware, this would only be considered in a situation where a continuous trackside walkway is provided such that passengers can be evacuated in the event of one or multiple trains becoming stalled, and maintenance staff can reach those trains. Without re-boring all of the tunnels this is not an option.
Mr Crow is indeed a prat and no doubt his reasoning is bad. However in this case he may end up being partially correct.
Having seen it from the inside I wouldn’t put any faith in the safety or reliability of the new signalling systems being installed on the Underground, let alone any future attempt at totally-unstaffed operation. I’m not saying it can’t be done but rather with the current vested-interests, poor engineering, lack of in-house design and over-reliance on technology from the consumer electronics industry, it is unlikely to be done successfully.
I am not against automatic train operation and, in fact, consider the original Victoria Line system (now sadly gone) to have been a true masterpiece of engineering. If people with the capabilities of Mr Dell’s original team were running things today then safe, reliable unstaffed trains would be a real possibility. Unfortunately things are run by project managers with little technical knowledge and directors whose management style would be better suited to the Army. The whole thing is moving towards another Thatcher/Scargill style stand-off in which nobody wins but both the public and the staff (including those with no interest in the unions) end up being well and truly shafted.
Matt
…..directors whose management style would be better suited to the Army. No, worse than that – typical, arrogant British (mis)Management.
The Army actually has a saying: “There are no bad troops, only bad officers”
For another current really awful example of this see here:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/10670347/Rebellion-in-ranks-of-St-John-Ambulance.html
Truly awful stuff.
That does look awful and seems to be a recurring theme, as do the “management tools” used by many of these thugs. It implies the same set of consultants have been at work across a whole range of organisations, not entirely limited to the public and charity sectors either.
With regard to the Underground, the policies of systematically installing yes-men and using bullying tactics to obtain sign-off of documents are perhaps the most worrying. This has happened since at least the mid-’90s when the Central Line stock was delivered (subsequently requiring 10+ years of hard work to bring up to acceptable standards and now suffering a new and very real problem of proprietary component obsolescence and inavailability). This management behaviour actually got worse when LUL took back the former Metronet, which was certainly not what staff were expecting or hoping for.
Regarding computers (that is to include PLCs, so-called “vital processors” and all such other devices executing stored code) used for critical applications, I believe there is now a strong case to be made that they are wholly unsuitable for the job and cannot be trusted to provide “vital” functions to the same level of integrity as traditional fail-safe design methods. This applies particularly in an environment which necessitates them to be linked to multiple sites and the outside world, with access by multiple operators. I have always had this concern but believe it to have been vindicated by the now well-documented case of the “Stuxnet” worm:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuxnet