10 Nov 2011
London Underground (LU) has confirmed that it suffered a software failure last week that caused the control centre of the Jubilee line to go down for almost an hour.
The Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) Union revealed yesterday that LU had undergone a "total communications and systems failure", where the screens in the Jubilee Line control room went blank for 55 minutes from 18:50 on Friday 4th November.
Ten trains were stalled, put into manual mode and had to be disembarked, which RMT argues was good enough evidence to quash calls for the introduction of driverless trains.
"This major emergency last Friday evening exposes the lethal consequences of removing drivers from trains," said Bob Crow, RMT general secretary. "The Jubilee Line is already heavily automated, but this incident shows that you still need drivers to move into manual mode and take over when something goes wrong."
London Underground has confirmed that the problem was caused by a software failure and it is looking into why the problem occurred.
"This was caused by a software problem and a thorough investigation is underway," said Howard Collins, chief operating officer at London Underground. "We are pressing our contractors Thales to provide assurances that this will not happen again. At no point were passengers at risk, as the system prevented trains from moving into close proximity of each other."
Has no divers and no such problems. The Victoria line was built to run driverless, but has drivers thanks to industrial action from the RMT.
Tube drivers are massively overpaid and recently got a massive payrise to promise not to be naughty during the Olympics.
High time this nasty lot were automated out of existence - train drivers should not be receiving double the average family salary for what amounts to holding a lever at the farepayers expense.
We pay their wages. Through the nose.
Posted by: Lord Gaga 10 Nov 2011
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