"Robin" wrote in message
...
On 02/06/2021 10:54, Recliner wrote:
snip
But London Reconnections is rather sceptical about the whole Johnsonian
vision of union-busting driverless trains. And it quotes one former
London
mayor: “I would rather prioritise capacity… I would rather put the
investment into expanding the ability of our underground system to carry
people in comfort, than in putting money now into creating a new breed of
driverless train.”


I thought that was a cheap trick that detracted from the article. Capacity
may well have been a priority in 2010. But now? Given the very many
forecasting that a much increased amount of working from home I doubt TfL
is likely to have a capacity problem for the short and medium term. What
it does have is massive budget problem - i.e. spending which vastly
exceeds its income.

To paraphrase the ante-penultimate para, my recommendation to those at LR
Towers is that they remember this, whenever the topic comes up. Focusing
on better ways to increase capacity on the London Underground may be
fighting last decade's war.

and methinks people protest too much

analysis of driverless trains is either going to be cost effective or it
isn't.

I doubt that the treasury will sign it off if it isn't

Though superficially, for trains with attendants it surely doesn't cost that
much to implement

All it needs is updated signalling systems, which are presumably upgraded at
intervals anyway and platform doors (which also help to save costs on air
conditioned platforms).

Against which, you are still going to have an attendant of board to deal
with emergency evacuations, which somewhat negates the saving from drivers.

So surely it all comes down to what is the saving in cost from operating
with attendant rather than drivers? Which is as much an issue of what are
the recruitment/training costs of this role as much as the annual salary.















Robin
reply-to address is (intended to be) valid