Sign in / up

back to article Union enraged by secret driverless Tube plan

Unionists are up in arms today after a report showed Transport for London (TfL) investigated new technologies that would have led to job cuts. The report, leaked by the Rail and Maritime Transport Union (RMT), is a strategy discussion of driverless Tube trains and a 'wave and pay' ticketing system that would let commuters use …

COMMENTS

House rules Send corrections
This topic is closed for new posts.

Page:

  1. Coofer Cat

    Overpaid, underskilled

    Tube drivers aren't all that well skilled, yet get paid disproportionately well. Take for example the Waterloo and City line - surely the simplest there can be. Trains leave waterloo, the driver has a crazed look in his eye as he 'floors' it to try and get the wheels to bounce off the track. Because he's gone too fast, he then has to stop just outside the station to wait for the platform to become available.

    Surely, if these drivers were so oh-my-god-they're-great-we-can't-live-without-them, they'd be able to figure out that going 5mph *slower* would actually get them there faster?

    As for Bob Crow, 145K/year is all you need to know.

    0 0
  2. AJames

    Driverless trains can work

    The trains in Vancouver (Canada) are all driverless, and they have a good safety record. The trains, tracks, and stations are monitored by CCTV from a central control room, and they have automated safety systems that monitor the tracks and stop the trains in the event of a problem. Plenty of uniformed staff and transit police circulate throughout the system, and there's a good chance of seeing them on any given train or at any given platform.

    0 0
    1. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Vancouver

      The SkyTrain system in Vancouver has never had drivers and is currently celebrating it's 25th anniversary, untested cutting edge technology indeed!

      0 0
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Thumb Up

      Me too

      Yeah, I was going to mention the Skytrain.

      Take it to work every morning.

      One good thing about it is that when the train is ready to leave, it doesn't hang about waiting for every bugger to squeeze on. It just shuts the doors and you're off! There're plenty of trains so at peak time, you only have to wait for a couple of mins. That way it generally runs on time.

      They do get occasional faults but I find it pretty good. You don't get the problem of having to cancel trains because drivers are sick either.

      As others have said though, it does need to be designed in. At stations, there are laser activated alarms to detect track intrusions. There are also usually plenty of staff and transit police around the place that ride on the trains and hang around the stations. There doesn't have to be mass redundancies but the main benefits are more efficient and regular running.

      0 0
  3. Richard Porter
    Mushroom

    ATO

    "TfL is already running some semi-automatic trains on the Jubilee line, although these trains also still have a driver. "

    The Victoria Line has had Automatic Train Operation since it opened in 1968. No doubt with the new signalling the 09 stock could run fully automatically, but you'd still need someone on the train and/or on the platform at each station to dispatch the train. Remote control with CCTV isn't much good when something goes wrong. You can't do CPR over long line PA!

    Incidentally, Bob Crow may be a throwback to the past (he reminds me of Ray Buckton at ASLEF) but he's not a moron. He is a good negotiator and debater, and he can rin rings around most of our politicians as the recent Question Time debacle proved. We needed someone like him in 1964 - who did we get? - Sydney Green.

    0 0
    1. Yet Another Commentard
      Reply Icon

      Re: debater

      Obvious mass-debater gag deleted.

      Was this the one where he said (to a roar of approval from the crowd) "I wish everyone in the country earned a hundred grand [or whatever] like me?"

      Popularist, but stupid. If we made the minimum wage £100k, can you imagine the price of bread, eggs, tube fares, mars bars... either we'd offshore everything, so no employment, or devalue the currency so £100k was worth whatever minimum wage is now.

      I suggest he take a day reduction in salary every time one of his crowd has a day strike. it's nice to call it when you are not affected, is it not?

      0 0
    2. Anonymous Coward
      Reply Icon
      Anonymous Coward

      Eh?

      I would agree that Bob is an effective negotiator, although his negotiation style is very much along the lines of "If you don't do what we want, we'll bring everyone out". However, I've seen him on Question Time and heard him on Any Questions enough times to know that he is not a good debater. He is certainly an em-passioned speaker but he rarely integrates into a debate and certainly won't ever allow himself to have his mind changed in any way during a debate. He holds opinions so strongly without any examination of pertinent facts that I actually heard him saying that the Tories want to sell off the NHS while Labour would never do that and that the NHS has been and would continue to be safe in Labour's hands - totally blinded to the fact that it was Labour who started the privatisation of the NHS in the first place.

      0 0
  4. mmm mmm

    It's about time

    It went automatic; When the trains and stations go automatic, Bob Crow and his cronies will have nothing to hold us to ransom with, which if I didn't know different, is the real reason they're going uproar again.

    0 0
  5. Locky
    Pint

    Any story involving tube drivers

    reminds me of this - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lz0xICzk5NM

    Yes, you've seen it a hundred times, but it doesn't stop it from being funny

    0 0
  6. Blubster
    Devil

    Bob Crow and the RMT?

    Fuck 'em

    0 0
  7. Eduard Coli
    Devil

    Unionize the robots

    Rather than cut service when inevitably the things break after cost overruns buy the lowest bidder with some nice kickbacks to pertinent offices in thanks for their help. Real efficiencies could be realized by automating politicians. A TI 94A could probably cover several MPs and would not need so many breaks or get up to so much trouble.

    0 0
  8. Deano2099

    just a thought...

    But with the money saved from having driver-less trains, we could put a police officer that would other be getting 'cut' on every train.

    0 0

  9. This post has been deleted by its author

Page:

This topic is closed for new posts.

Other stories you might like