3 ms·

It's a reasonable sounding argument but I don't find it totally convincing. Firstly, a big deal is made about the need for PEDs. The justification given is vag

It's a reasonable sounding argument but I don't find it totally convincing. Firstly, a big deal is made about the need for PEDs. The justification given is vague - essentially that the regulator would require them, because it's now "known" that PEDs are required, and the DLR doesn't have them because, well, really it should but we don't care enough to actually upgrade it. But new stuff must. This looks like a case of creeping safetyism. If PEDs are really required for the acceptably safe operation of a railway then clearly both the DLR and LU must be considered unsafe, because the number of passenger-on-track or passenger-in-door situations that only a driver can solve seems very small indeed. In fact it's surely the case that platform attendants are better placed to observe these problems as they can easily look along the entire length of even a busy platform, whereas a driver must rely on a mirror. Saying automation "requires" PEDs is a bold statement given the successful and apparently safe operation of the DLR for decades, yet no evidence is provided beyond the opinion of the ORR, which as a regulator is hardly unbiased - they have zero incentive to make automation happen and every incentive not to. The arguments about strikes also looks superficially reasonable, but I'm not sure it holds on closer inspection. Drivers have a lot of strike power because there are a lot of them and they require a lot of training, so they are impossible to replace as a bloc. Presumably a well automated railway would require only a much smaller number of people in the control room, and those people would require less training, as the software will be carefully checking their inputs and doing the bulk of the work. So if they did decide to strike then you could probably have teams in reserve or call up the manufacturers of the equipment and ask them to send over some of the engineers who built it, to temporarily operate the equipment and train up a new team of control room staff. The striking power would surely be much lower. Even for physical maintenance staff, yes they can strike, but they can't immediately paralyze a live railway like drivers can. There's a limited amount of time for which a railway can operate without regular maintenance, and if the equipment is already in good condition, it seems likely that the railway can outlast the strikers. Also a lot of physical maintenance is not especially complex to train people on, so alternate workers could be found more easily. The main reasons the Tube isn't being automated are clearly not that it's some sort of insurmountable challenge, at least not according to this article, but rather than automation has been conflated with general wide-reaching safety and simplification upgrades, based on a dubious argument that drivers are much safer for passengers than any automated system can be. I'm not at all sure that's true.

vidarh 5y ago
I'm sure an automated system can be built that is safe enough - the Elizabeth Line demonstrates that. But the reality is that upgrades cost a lot of money, and nobody wants to spend that money. That is what it boils down to. With respect to attendants, they're mostly there on the busiest times at the busiest stations. Most of the time most platforms are largely unattended, and the driver is the only person present to take action unless you want to wait for the train to alert station staff to a situation that requires intervention. If the solution to automate is to put in place attendants permanently on every platform I'm not convinced it'd serve much purpose. With respect to the DLR, it's less than a year since the last time someone was killed by falling onto the tracks. While the DLR overall has a great safety record, it's far less crowded than several of the other lines. I don't think you'll get anyone willing to sign off on overriding the regulator there, given people have called for safety upgrades of the DLR too despite the few fatal accidents.
- thu2111 5y ago
  I think the idea is that attendants are much easier to train and thus replace quickly than drivers are. All they have to do normally is push a button saying "it's safe", more or less. Perhaps very rarely they'd need to go into the tunnels to reach a stuck train, but that's exceptionally rare. In a squeeze people could be trained to do the normal tasks in a day or less. DLR safety - aren't you agreeing with me? The DLR is not perfectly safe but in reality people accept it. Nobody is clamouring in London for the DLR to be shut down on the grounds that it's a death trap. London society has made its peace with the level of safety the DLR provides. Would more safety be nice, of course. Is it actually a hard requirement that blocks other upgrade projects? That's not at all clear and the argument you're making here is the same circular one the article makes - automation upgrades require safety upgrades because the regulator (+other undefined people) say they require safety upgrades, and the regulator says it requires safety upgrades because automation requires safety upgrades. But the link between these things seems rather brittle.
JoshuaRedmond 5y ago
On your first point about PEDs, I think you've missed that there's an element of safety they offer that prevents non-accidents (often referred to as a "person under the train" or other euphemisms). These definitely happen on the DLR [0] , along with many other lines. Among other obvious repurcussions of these incidents, these often result in a line closure of at least a full commuting slot. [0] - multiple incidents on this FOI request from 2012, and I'm sure there will be more recent data available https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/persons_under_trains https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/persons_under_trains

vidarh 5y ago

I'm sure an automated system can be built that is safe enough - the Elizabeth Line demonstrates that. But the reality is that upgrades cost a lot of money, and nobody wants to spend that money. That is what it boils down to. With respect to attendants, they're mostly there on the busiest times at the busiest stations. Most of the time most platforms are largely unattended, and the driver is the only person present to take action unless you want to wait for the train to alert station staff to a situation that requires intervention. If the solution to automate is to put in place attendants permanently on every platform I'm not convinced it'd serve much purpose. With respect to the DLR, it's less than a year since the last time someone was killed by falling onto the tracks. While the DLR overall has a great safety record, it's far less crowded than several of the other lines. I don't think you'll get anyone willing to sign off on overriding the regulator there, given people have called for safety upgrades of the DLR too despite the few fatal accidents.

thu2111 5y ago
I think the idea is that attendants are much easier to train and thus replace quickly than drivers are. All they have to do normally is push a button saying "it's safe", more or less. Perhaps very rarely they'd need to go into the tunnels to reach a stuck train, but that's exceptionally rare. In a squeeze people could be trained to do the normal tasks in a day or less. DLR safety - aren't you agreeing with me? The DLR is not perfectly safe but in reality people accept it. Nobody is clamouring in London for the DLR to be shut down on the grounds that it's a death trap. London society has made its peace with the level of safety the DLR provides. Would more safety be nice, of course. Is it actually a hard requirement that blocks other upgrade projects? That's not at all clear and the argument you're making here is the same circular one the article makes - automation upgrades require safety upgrades because the regulator (+other undefined people) say they require safety upgrades, and the regulator says it requires safety upgrades because automation requires safety upgrades. But the link between these things seems rather brittle.

JoshuaRedmond 5y ago

On your first point about PEDs, I think you've missed that there's an element of safety they offer that prevents non-accidents (often referred to as a "person under the train" or other euphemisms). These definitely happen on the DLR [0] , along with many other lines. Among other obvious repurcussions of these incidents, these often result in a line closure of at least a full commuting slot. [0] - multiple incidents on this FOI request from 2012, and I'm sure there will be more recent data available https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/persons_under_trains https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/persons_under_trains