UK: The previous government’s proposal for the possible conversion of London Underground lines to driverless operation will not be taken any further, Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has confirmed.
Conversion to driverless operation is regularly suggested by politicians and commentators, often in the belief that this would prevent industrial action stopping services. However, parts of the network date back to the 1860s and are not built as modern routes would be, and many of the lines have complex junctions.
In 2021 the then government required a study for the conversion of the two-station Waterloo & City Line and the much more complex Piccadilly Line to be undertaken. This was a condition of the provision of funding to keep services running at a time when ridership had collapsed because of Covid-19; before the pandemic the London Underground received no government funding for day-to-day operations.
The study was led by the Department for Transport, with technical input from Transport for London, and looked at the implementation of Grade-of-Automation 3 (driverless but with an attendant, as used on the Docklands Light Railway).
Answering a question from a London Assembly member on November 26, Khan said it had been concluded that the introduction of driverless trains would cost ‘billions of pounds on each line’.
He said ’learning from other metros around the world, particularly Paris which provided input into the work, the most practicable way of conversion would be for it to coincide with the introduction of new rolling stock, signalling and platform edge doors at the same time as part of a line upgrade. This would be needed to justify the high costs.
’On that basis it was agreed the work shouldn’t be progressed any further’, Khan concluded.
