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    When will LU see driverless trains?

    Oct 05, 2020 7 minutes
    Tom Page/Creative Commons
    Poudou99/Creative Commons
    TfL/PriestmanGoode

    “WHAT work has been done by London Underground since 2016 on driverless trains?” asked Greater London Authority member Tony Devenish to Mayor of London Sadiq Khan during a mayor’s question time on January 17, 2019.

    Sadiq Khan’s reply was: “The London Underground system is an extremely complex environment and, for reasons of safety, they are not suitable for driverless trains and there are no plans for their introduction.” This is despite the current rollout of signalling technology across the Sub-Surface Railway that will allow trains to operate semi-automatically.

    Tony Devenish’s question may have been motivated by the Future of Mobility document published by the Government Office for Science that same month. The preface, written by the Government’s chief scientific adviser Sir Patrick Vallance, states: “One attraction of self-driving trains is potential cost savings. Self-driving trains break the link between the frequency of train services and staff costs. If staff costs are lowered, fully autonomous trains can run more frequently with lower additional costs.”

    Then in July this year, while on a visit to the future Siemens factory in Goole, Prime Minister (and Sadiq Khan’s predecessor as Mayor of London) Boris Johnson said: “Let’s take advantage of this technological leap forward,

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