UK: Late design changes have brought a £34m increase in the cost of the trains which Siemens Mobility is to supply for London Underground’s Piccadilly Line, after the operator discovered that it would not be able to accept the fleet into service as originally specified.
In November 2018 Transport for London awarded Siemens Mobility a contract to supply and support 94 nine-car Inspiro trainsets to replace the Piccadilly Line fleet from 2025. Half are to be produced at the company’s plant at Wien in Austria, and half at a new factory being built at Goole in East Yorkshire.
Covid-19 restrictions meant physical mock-ups of the new trains were not available to London Underground, and as a result it discovered late in the design phase that the space it had specified for instructor operators, who oversee the training of drivers, was unsuitable.
Changes to the cab design were needed to optimise the space for the instructor. These impacted on the adjacent saloon, requiring the removal of two passenger seats, adjustments to the windows and passenger information screens and repositioning of the partition wall.
To minimise the cost of thee changes Siemens Mobility’s contract terms were modified, including the payment profile and key programme dates. This has added £34m to the total contract value, taking it to £1·48bn plus VAT.
A TfL spokesperson told Metro Report International that ‘following a review process with Siemens, TfL has worked hard to minimise the cost of these changes and will continue work with them to look for savings opportunities to offset the cost of this design change. The project remains on track, with new Piccadilly Line trains due to serve customers from 2025.’
