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We have this system on a few lines in London now. The only job now for the train 'drivers' is to open and close the doors and the platform.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automation_of_the_London_Under...




...if the train is on happy path. And believe me, there are some really ugly unhappy paths where underground passenger rail is concerned; we definitely have no technology autonomous enough for that.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_London_Underground_acc...


A system so safe, that almost all of the accidents in the last 50 years say "no serious injuries" or even "no injuries".

One driver was killed in 1968, another in 1984, someone broken a leg in 2003, and a passenger in 2004 dragged along a platform.

(The accident in 1975 was with a mainline rail train, not a metro train, I'm not sure why it's on the list.)


The line to Moorgate was owned by the Metropolitan Railway, which became part of the amalgamated London Passenger Transport Board, using the Underground brand, and branded as part of the Northern Line.

The line up to Holloway Junction (where it joins the ECML) was owned and maintained as part of the Underground, operated by Underground drivers and Underground owned trains, and it was only transferred near the end of 1975 to British Rail.

Perhaps most tellingly, it was London Underground 1938 Stock involved in the 1975 crash.


> Perhaps most tellingly, it was London Underground 1938 Stock involved in the 1975 crash.

Thanks, that's something I'd not realized. I'd assumed the situation was more like the current London Overground system.


More pertinently, a good deal of these seems to to driver error, specifically missing signals. If there's anything automatic drivers are good at, it's not missing signals.


That's a fair point, noted. Better signalling and especially automated signalling has made rail travel orders of magnitude safer.




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