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London Unveils New Driverless Subway Trains
MikeChino writes London just unveiled its next-generation subway trains — and they're sleek, 100% automated, and WiFi-equipped. UK-based design studio Priestmangoode teamed up with Transport for London to develop the trains over a period of 3 years, and they feature open and airy interiors inspired by aviation design.
We had those (except wifi) in our city (Torino, little more than 800k people in northen Italy) for the last 8 years. Where is the news?
Driverless subways exits in other cities for a while now. And this is definitely one of those things, where you can automate a lot out of a system.
And on the day of unveiling, the immediate comment from the National Union of Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers Union was "we don't like driverless trains". Why? Because the drivers are members of that union. Nuff said really.
Driverless trains have worked fine on the Docklands Light Railway for years, about time we switched the tube over.
I'm not an engineer, but I always wondered why trains tend to be designed like a wall. Only high-speed trains are actually wedge shaped to be aerodynamic.
I would imagine that a subway train, acting like a "piston" would work better if it were more aerodynamic and not have to overcome a lot of pressure within the tunnel.
Can anyone explain the reasons behind this design?
They are piston shaped on purpose, they actually are the main way to cause ventilation of air in/out of the underground.
they feature open and airy interiors inspired by aviation design.
Aviation design doesn't exactly spell open and airy interiors to me. It spells cramped seats and stale peanuts.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
That's how London Underground, as well as other highly congested services in London (Overground, DLR and, increasingly, some of the short-distance "heavy rail" commuter trains) are configured. Crowding levels during the morning peak are intense and removing seats is a way to cram more people on.
By and large, the way it works is that if you are commuting from one of the outer zones (5 or 6) into the center, your train won't be as busy when you get on it and you should be able to get one of those seats, which is lucky as with the Tube being a full-stopping service, you are in for a long journey. If you're commuting from one of the more central zones (2 or 3) you are much more likely to have to stand, but on the other hand, you do have a shorter journey.
Obviously, it works better on some parts of the network than others. And it's a fairly brutal environment to commute in, particularly if you have a particular reason (disability, pregnancy) that makes standing uncomfortable - somebody might offer you a seat, but it's the exception rather than the norm at rush hour. Personally, I think people who live in north London and commute via the Tube are mad. I'm south of the river in Zone 5 and get a seat on a nice, non-stop "heavy rail" train that gets me to the center in 20 minutes or so every morning.
Clearly you don't live in Britain, otherwise you'd understand how polite and accommodating we are.
If there are no seats, ask a fellow passenger if you can sit on their lap. They'll usually oblige, unless they have a very good reason.
Try it the next time you visit.
Summation 2
It's extremely rare that an emergency results in a train stopped between stations: if you pull the cord the driver won't stop mid-tunnel. Every carriage on every train on every line has a notice stating this.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
Actually, the real news is that it's "inspired by Tube driver strikes".
The London Underground staff go on strike so often, this is basically a (well-deserved) warning shot. If the drivers being paid more than teachers, nurses and doctors to push a lever forward for 8 hours a day (probably only 300 days a year, though, once you take into account strikes, holidays, etc.) want to disrupt the entire London Tube network and bring London to a standstill every time they negotiate their above-inflation pensions and pay-rises, this is the only sensible and logical result.
No drivers. No strikes. And if the station staff go on strike - well, we've almost eliminated them too and they are much more easily replaced. Funny how the unions are whining about "unattended" stations now, isn't it...
London has been held hostage by the railway unions for decades. The only spark of hope was the DLR (which is a driverless train line) but even there they were forced to put "safety officers" on the trains because of union representation. Now it seems that the joyride is ending and we might get a decent subway system not subject to the whims of a union leader (strange how this all changed once Bob Crow was out of the picture...).
I counted up one year. There were something like 30 days of strikes in one year, all backed by the same union - drivers, then station staff, then railway maintenance staff, etc. but all the same union.
I just want a transport system that works. I don't really care how we get there and there are more than enough jobs to go around when you have 8 million people going back and forth every day. But I abandoned public transport when, if it wasn't the strikes, it was the cancellations, delays, or total shutdowns for maintenance, then the ticket prices went through the roof to pay a Tube driver who requires 1 year's training more than I was being paid in a good job, after 15 year's experience and needing a degree.
News summaries for this year regarding transport are: Problem, problem, problem. Bob Crow gone. Station staff gone except for skeleton staff, automated ticket systems instead. Drivers gone, driverless trains instead. Weekend openings (after DECADES of weekend shutdowns "for maintenance", because nobody in London wants to go anywhere on a weekend, do they?).
All of a sudden, we have a system that stands a chance of working. All I need now is for them to install the barriers to stop over-crowding meaning you can fall onto the tracks (and shut down the whole Tube network for another day) and we might have something approaching what every other country in the world has had for decades.
And the solution is not one man trying to evacuate people down the line (it's an emergency, right? So if you shut down the line enough for help other than the lone driver we have at the moment to walk down the line, then everyone could walk back to the station safely anyway!)
And escape walkway or not - what the hell does that matter? It means you can't walk down the SIDE of the train. Only through it and out onto the tracks. If you're out of the train, the danger is the same. In fact, I'd say it's safer NOT to have a narrow walkway that you want to push 200 people down, but to just power down the line and have them walk out of the tunnel.
Why does this need a driver? And to me, the solution is not to pay several hundred men £30k each to push a lever for 10 years, but to widen the tunnel slightly.
The DLR is actually AIRBORNE at some points (no escape at all) and was unmanned. The "must be manned" is the union line to preserve jobs, not anything to do with safety.
As I understand it, the new trains are *capable* of being driverless... meaning they can also have drivers, and the plan is for them to retain drivers, initially at least. Anyone who knows anything about the history of LU will know that the spectre of driverless trains is something the unions (the RMT particularly, personified by the late Bob Crow) have been trying to resist for years. This is a smart move by the Mayor of London and the Conservative govermnent, like it or not - I imagine that the trains will have drivers for a few years, and whenever they strike, as they inevitably will, the trains will be able to operate as normal without them - and everyone will realise the drivers are not needed. There will be years of legal wrangling and eventually those staff will get nice fat payoffs and our trains will not be able to go on strike any more (Robocop anyone?) - and everyone will be happier.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/road-and-rail-transport/11150671/New-driverless-tube-trains-unveiled-by-TFL.html
They have trains like this in Toronto. The open-car/few seats part of the design, not the driverless part. I was on vacation there in the summer, and I found they work quite well. At low volume times, there was few passengers so you could mostly find a seat. At high volume times, there was no way you could find a seat no matter how many seats they had on the train. Having less seats left more room for standing and more room for maneuvering to get on and off the train.
Compared to the buses in my city (we only have busses), leaving more room for standing becomes immediately apparent. In many parts you can only stand 1 person wide. If you're at the back, it takes a long time maneuvre between all the people to make it to the door. You either have to start moving towards the door 2 or so stops before you disembark, or you'll end up holding up the bus for minutes while your trying to get to the door. It's not uncommon for people to miss their stop because they couldn't get to the door before the door closed. The driver can't see that far to the back to tell if anybody is trying to make their way to the door. And apparently some people don't like to use their voice to alert the driver to wait up for a moment.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
Aviation design doesn't exactly spell open and airy interiors to me. It spells cramped seats and stale peanuts.
Um, you know that would be an improvement at rush hour, right? At the moment the current design is more like being wedged under some massive sweaty unwashed guy's armpit in 35 degree heat.
Cramped seats and stale peanuts would be a welcome break from that.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
One thing brought up this week was something they called Polanyi's Paradox -- the ability to do things without actually knowing exactly how they're done, what Polanyi I think called tacit knowledge. Riding a bicycle was an example -- you can try to codify it and tell someone how to ride a bicycle, but they won't actually be able to ride a bicycle until they learn.
It plays a role in trying to figure out what things can be automated there are categories of tasks that despite their apparent simplicity defy automation.
I'm less concerned about the gains to automation than I am in the way that displaced workers (and future) workers are treated in the economy. I don't think it's reasonable that the current "system" of brief unemployment insurance followed by basically spiraling unemployment and poverty is tenable. It seems to be just another way of privatizing the gains for business while socializing the losses, whether through cash payments or paying for the effects of poverty.
Nor is just saying "well, new technologies will create new kinds of jobs" -- that's true, but saying "some new and different jobs will be created" seems to be a kind of a reliance on magical thinking.
They haven't flown coach lately, have they.
Aircraft do look nice and airy on the inside - right up until you cram in extra rows of seats to make more money, then fill them up with people and luggage. Even in coach, I had some very comfortable long-haul flights in the months after 9/11 with an entire row of seats on a 777 to myself - of course, the airlines weren't quite as comfortable with the plane being that empty. (I'm told this is how Sean Connery flies: rather than pay for first class, just book a whole row in coach. Presumably the airline's perfectly happy with an empty seat, as long as it's being paid for.)