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Automated Tube Trains? Poll

How do you feel about automated Tube Trains?


  • Total voters
    71
  • Poll closed .

paolo

Well-Known Member
TFL are talking about "driverless" tube trains.

Get your oar in (Or remove your oar but have it on board just in case. Or leave your oar at home entirely.)
 
If it meant the ticket price was reduced to something slightly reasonable then I'd be up for it. It's not exactly rocket science driving a train so I can't see why not.
 
It's not exactly rocket science driving a train so I can't see why not.

:hmm:

don't fall in to the trap of assuming it's completely unskilled because it's considered a "working class job".

Training is a matter of months for train drivers - this is a briefish article that goes in to this. In any transport job, the vast majority of the time, you draw on a small amount of the training. The knowledge and much of the responsibility is in what to do when things don't follow routine...
 
Just for clarity, the 2nd option - for automated trains with a member of staff on board - means that the member of staff is a trained driver who can drive the train if need be.
 
I'm not against the tech but do have concerns about this and their move to try and reduce stationed staff entirely from tube stations. The tube can be a very intimidating place late at night especially for women. So the holistic policy to drive down staffing worries me a bit. Not the automation of trains, just the bigger picture.
 
Just for clarity, the 2nd option - for automated trains with a member of staff on board - means that the member of staff is a trained driver who can drive the train if need be.

This is a very important point, and to expand on it and the one made by Puddy_Tat above, operators on the Victoria line where ATO currently operates have to be trained to the same level, and are paid at the same rate, as operators on the rest of the system who do still drive the trains.

A huge part of what all of them are trained in is non-typical train operation, eg how to deal with a train if it breaks down in a tunnel (you can't call the AA, or get a tow truck to pull you out) and how to deal with various emergencies, including fire and evacuations.

I can't help thinking that the idea of extended ATO to the whole system is seen by Boris etc as the first step to doing away with properly trained staff on trains altogether (read his comment quoted by someone or other on the other thread about not paying for trains with a cab at the front), so even though I'm not hugely concerned about the safety aspects of ATO as it now exists, I'd be against it being extended to the whole system, because it wouldn't stop there.
 
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Can you point out any urban metro system in the world that makes a profit ? I think NY last made a "real" profit in 1920 ....London never has , which is why it was taken under Govt control in 1933.

And let's get it right about who it's a subsidy to. The tube gets workers to their shitty jobs, gets people to shitty shops to buy shit, ferries shitty tourists around shitty tourist venues and basically keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

And well done gabi for two idiotic assumptions in one post. You never fail to surprise me with your ignorance and stupidity.
 
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And let's get it right about who it's a subsidy to. The tune gets workers to their shitty jobs, gets people to shitty shops to buy shit, ferries shitty tourists around shitty tourist venues and basically keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

And well done gabi for two idiotic assumptions in one post. You never fail to surprise me with your ignorance and stupidity.

Have you not had your afternoon nap?
 
And let's get it right about who it's a subsidy to. The tube gets workers to their shitty jobs, gets people to shitty shops to buy shit, ferries shitty tourists around shitty tourist venues and basically keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

And well done gabi for two idiotic assumptions in one post. You never fail to surprise me with your ignorance and stupidity.

Agree with all of this, except for the final sentence.

"Annoy", OK, "infuriate" even, but "surprise"? surely not...

Hope you get over your post-nap grumpiness and confusion soon ;)
 
I don't mind trains without drivers but only if the drivers are given new jobs as bus conductors, bus conductors were great, it was crazy getting rid of them.

Even better idea (I know it's a bit "out there" but bear with me, you might like it) why not keep the drivers on the trains, and also bring back conductors on the buses and guards on the trains?

No, you're right, it would never work, ah well, I told you it was a bit out there... ;)
 
Even better idea (I know it's a bit "out there" but bear with me, you might like it) why not keep the drivers on the trains, and also bring back conductors on the buses and guards on the trains?

No, you're right, it would never work, ah well, I told you it was a bit out there... ;)
there's no real need for train drivers but bus conductors had a social function and were great characters, plus they made buses go faster
 
there's no real need for train drivers but bus conductors had a social function and were great characters, plus they made buses go faster

Well I suppose that depends on your definition of "need" but unless you share the sort of political objection that Boris has to tube workers, I suggest there are other jobs which people do which we need far less and which do far more actual harm than tube drivers.

And some of them are/were great characters too, in my experience.
 
Well I suppose that depends on your definition of "need" but unless you share the sort of political objection that Boris has to tube workers, I suggest there are other jobs which people do which we need far less and which do far more actual harm than tube drivers.

And some of them are/were great characters too, in my experience.
My feeling is that if trains are automated drivers should be offered jobs as bus conductors, it's a better job, healthier and more useful. As for the character of drivers I'm sure they can be fun, but we rarely get to see them or benefit from joviality
 
It's a job that could probably be done better and safer by a computer. I reckon it won't be long before we see Johnny Tube


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Just a note to those who are proposing job reallocation for tube drivers.

These are high skilled blue collar jobs and your propositions that they'd all be conductors is risible. They've already done away with those jobs, why would you suppose that they'd reinvent these already redundant positions or that they'd be filled by high skilled workers?
 
Just for clarity, the 2nd option - for automated trains with a member of staff on board - means that the member of staff is a trained driver who can drive the train if need be.
This situation already exists on several lines.

If we were building a new metro system from scratch, I have every confidence it could be fully automated and be very safe. But the London Underground is an antiquated mess that was never built with unattended operation in mind. The deep tubes especially will always need staffing because of the evactuation method through the front or rear rather than onto a platform-level escape walkway.
 
I don't mind trains without drivers but only if the drivers are given new jobs as bus conductors, bus conductors were great, it was crazy getting rid of them.

You'd be happy to be in the middle of a tube train with a thousand or so passengers on it, with no staff member on board, that stops somewhere between stations with fuck all information, and a door at each end that leads on to electrified tracks?

No thanks...

At the risk of yet another repetition, the Victoria Line (as mentioned above) has been 'automatic train operation' since it opened in the late 60s, the Central, Jubilee and Northern lines have followed suit more recently - but all have a 'train operator' in the front cab.

And the so called 'driverless' Docklands Light Railway has a staff member - who is fully trained to drive the damn things if the system fails - on board at all times.

My feeling is that if trains are automated drivers should be offered jobs as bus conductors, it's a better job, healthier and more useful. As for the character of drivers I'm sure they can be fun, but we rarely get to see them or benefit from joviality

To some extent, Boris has brought back the 'passenger assistant' on Borismasters (or at least on some of the routes, and some of the time) whose sole function seems to be to tell people off it they try to board or alight when the bus isn't at a stop.

As for 'healthier' - the conductors on the real Routemasters stood, on some routes, about a 1 in 3 chance of being assaulted in the course of their duty to an extent that they needed sick leave, in the space of any year. That's why most of them had largely given up on fare collection towards the end...
 
And let's get it right about who it's a subsidy to. The tube gets workers to their shitty jobs, gets people to shitty shops to buy shit, ferries shitty tourists around shitty tourist venues and basically keeps the wheels of capitalism turning.

And well done gabi for two idiotic assumptions in one post. You never fail to surprise me with your ignorance and stupidity.

Well done. I pay 80p a journey where I live for a journey on the underground. And in every other city I've ever taken the underground in. I pay something like 4 quid in london. Whys that then? You ignorant fucking idiot. Please, keep splurgin away. Not my money anymore. Enjoy pissing your dosh away there.
 
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