Driverless Tube trains would cost £7bn, report shows
A leaked document has shown that it would cost £7bn to introduce driverless trains onto London’s Tube network.
Automating trains on the capital’s underground network is a pet project of PM Boris Johnson, who has pushed for progress on the development.
Back in July, he said that driverless Tube trains should be a condition of any future government funding of Transport for London (TfL).
And last week the FT revealed that Grant Shapps had listed speeding up “inadequate progress” on the measure as one of the government’s demands for providing the capital’s transport network with a new bailout package.
But the document, which was obtained by train drivers union ASLEF and first reported by the BBC, suggests that automating the network would be economically unfeasible.
In addition, it showed that due to the constraints of the Tube’s infrastructure, there would still need to be a train operator on every train.
ASLEF London Underground organiser Finn Brennan said: “Boris Johnson has said that introducing driverless trains should be a condition of a funding settlement for TfL.
“But these documents show that not only is there no business case for this, but it would make TfL’s financial position much worse.
“When Boris Johnson was Mayor of London, his failed vanity projects, like the Garden Bridge and those Boris buses, cost Londoners almost £1bn. But this is dwarfed by the vast cost of his ideological obsession with driverless trains, a project that every transport expert, as well as TfL senior managers, have concluded makes no financial sense.
“If the government tries to force TfL to waste huge sums on this pointless exercise, it would suck resources away from projects that could have real positive benefits for passenger safety and bankrupt the entire Tube network.”
The analysis was prepared by TfL as part of a review of its finances carried out by KPMG.
A TfL spokesman said: “Our train operators perform a fundamental safety-critical role on the transport network.
“Along with all our front-line staff, they have played an essential role in keeping London moving during the pandemic.
“The possibilities, costs and benefits of driverless trains are things that TfL has looked at in the past and will continue to keep under review but it is not something we are actively pursuing.”