LONDON TRANSPORT OVERVIEW
Standardising
ondon Underground (LU) runs one of the world’s most complex metro systems, carrying millions of people every day. A new signalling system, to be installed with Bombardier as part of a contract worth £354m, aims to provide the fl exibility to run more trains and increase capacity, signifi cantly boosting LU’s ability to meet rising demand.
Bombardiers’ Cityfl o 650 system will be installed on the sub-surface Tube lines – Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan. The system has previously been successfully implemented in Madrid, without line closures.
RTM spoke to LU’s capital programmes director, David Waboso, about the new system, the diffi culties of standardisation, and future technology for the Tube.
Avoiding clunky closures
Waboso said this was a vital consideration for LU when deciding on a new system. The earlier Jubilee line upgrade involved disruptive weekend closures as the railway moved back and forth between the old and new systems, requiring huge amounts of time.
He explained: “It had a very clunky approach to testing, so we were looking around for a
the sub-surface lines L
solution that didn’t involve that. We do a lot of benchmarking with other metros and we saw that Metro Madrid was doing its resignalling without any closures.
“We went to have a look at that and came back knowing how they did it. We then put that approach into our specifi cation for sub- surface signalling and the response we got was very good. Bombardier’s was the best – not just around whole-life costs, but minimising closures.”
As well as improving operational effi cien- cy, the new system will bring several ben- efi ts to passengers, notably the ability to run the new S Stock trains more frequently.
The larger and more comfortable S7 and S8 stock, being delivered by Bombardier Transportation at Derby, is replacing the older rolling stock across the sub-surface lines in a rolling programme until 2016.
The Metropolitan line replacement is the most advanced: all its trains are S Stock, air conditioned, with through gangways and lots of other features such as better passenger information.
The new signalling system means passengers
feel is more from the improved
Waboso said: “The biggest benefi t
when you
can get these trains at much more frequent intervals, faster journey times. You
benefi t trains,
David Waboso, capital programmes director at London Underground, talks to RTM about inspiration from abroad on sub-surface signalling, and progress on cooling the Tube.
the new system.
He said: “When you assess what kind of system you want, you don’t just look at the cost of the contractor to provide the system – you look at what you have to do as a customer.”
There was a cost to providing and maintaining power and cabling, and maintenance costs of new systems over 40 years can be “two or three times what you buy”.
“ If there’s less equipment on the ground, there’s less to go wrong.”
Waboso added: “It’s a very important consideration. We were looking to reduce the amount of
installed as far as we can and then you judge both the capital cost and the operational cost of maintaining it – put both together to come up with the whole-life cost.
“We found that this system had reduced trackside equipment; a better whole-life cost.
“And if there’s less equipment on the ground, there’s less to go wrong too.”
Towards standardisation
London Underground now has multiple signalling systems, partly a legacy of the old Public Private Partnership (PPP) contract, which “did not result in standardisation of signalling systems” across the network. This means that trains even have to interoperate across different systems in a single route.
can move
Londoners far more quickly and comfortably for work and leisure.”
Reducing whole- life costs
Another
trackside cabling, which Waboso described as part of the whole-life cost calculation of
trackside
the reduced need for cabling, which
56 | rail technology magazine Apr/May 13 benefi t is
Waboso said: “That’s historical but these things stay with you for a very long time. Now we’ve got much greater control we are looking at how we standardise – if you look at other industries that’s how they get performance up and costs down. We want to be in that position.”
The next generation of deep Tube upgrades would see standardised trains and LU is considering “how we can standardise our signalling systems across different lines so we don’t end up with a huge number of further types”, Waboso explained. “We’ve got two or three different systems and the question is whether we try to get even more or if we try to harmonise on those two or three – that’s something we’re looking at,” he added.
equipment
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