Do the control systems use more power than is saved though? Or is that just an assumption pulled out of somewhere dark and smelly?
Well I cannot, of course, speak for Waverley's system.
We looked at a similar system, and found that the electronic controller's 24-hour power (actual as opposed to the manufacturers rather optimistic ratings) consumption was such that it required the system to be in power saving mode for 14 hours of the day to break even.
For our application downtime was closer to 6 hours so clearly it increased consumption - enough that we decided to remove it to save energy. Energy saving is very much in fashion at the moment when it comes to marketing, and vendors like to push it heavily. Like anything that needs to be heavily marketed it requires a lot of caution and cynicism before one commits.
We never did manage to get the vendor to explain to us why an electronic micro controller needed to consume 300w of power - six times as much as my laptop!
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Anyway back to Waverl Station.
Large complex systems often have teething problems when they are first put in. These escalators are no different - I am confident that given time they will be tuned so that they work more reliably.
Hopefully Network Rail's contract negotiators were on the ball and the financial liability for the teething issues is falling on the contractor.