TfL scraps plans for ‘driverless Tubes’ across London’s transport network

The London Underground trains will not be driven by robots any time soon after confirmation from the London Mayor.

The London Underground is not going automatic any time soon after Sadiq Khan said work to introduce driverless Tubes ‘shouldn’t be progressed any further.’

It comes after a written question from Alex Wilson, Reform UK’s London Assembly member, at the Mayor’s question time.

He asked whether the benefits of transitioning the Tube fleet to driverless trains would ‘far outweigh the costs,’ citing cities like Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona and Dubai as examples of places with driverless trains.

Now the London Mayor has said why TfL will no longer look into the option of driverless trains.

He said the feasibility assessment found that the introduction of driverless trains ‘would cost billions of pounds on each line.’

Mr Khan explained: ‘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.’

The spokesperson for the train drivers’ union Aslef told Metro that driverless trains ‘do not work and cannot work on Britain’s aging infrastructure.’

He said that the ‘reality is that driverless trains are the stuff of science fiction.’

While the railway infrastructure is a ‘testament to the Victorian engineers,’ a lot of it is ‘very old.’

‘You cannot run driverless trains on that infrastructure and everybody who knows anything about railway infrastructure knows that,’ he added.

He added that Sadiq Khan is ‘sensible’ for not taking the plans further, saying that he ‘wants the best for passengers and staff.’

‘And driverless Tube trains have never been it, and he knows that.’

Some sections of the Transport for London network already use driverless technology.

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) – which launched in 1987 serving mainly east and southeast London – has no driver’s cab but uses attendants instead.

Passengers on the DLR are able to sit at the top of the train where a driver would normally be on a train and take on the full view of the DLR tracks going through Canary Wharf, Bow, Stratford and Lewisham.

Boris Johnson pledged in 2012 and as part of his mayoral campaign that the Tube would have driverless trains in a decade.

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