£290m revamp of Glasgow Subway announced

[matchmaker]

Excellent news

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12687499

 

[me123]

It is fantastic news. The subway is a wonderful thing, but is in dire need of an overhaul. The trains are getting tired. Stepping into a station is like stepping back in time to the '80s. Although it is undoubtedly a fantastic asset for Glasgow, it doesn't come across as well as I think it should to visitors (in comparison to the strong branding of the London Underground, for example).

I'm also glad to see the mention of smartcard ticketing, but I would be keen to see a Scotland-wide scheme rather than just focusing on the SPT area.

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Yes, the investment is very welcome news. We should all be very pleased.

"driverless trains . . . . The changes could mean a significant reduction in SPT's 650 workforce" or is it? Should we all be very opposed?

 

[me123]

No, we shouldn't. The workforce will be reduced by natural wastage, and no complusory redundancies will take place. Besides, it's ATO anyway at the moment so the drivers don't do all that much.

That said, I wholly expect a series of strikes over the next few years. Which will probably be futile efforts, as they will only serve to remind the bosses that driverless trains don't go on strike, but that's beside the point...

 

[DaveNewcastle]

. . . . . driverless trains don't go on strike . . . .

presumably they haven't been paying their subscriptions, then!

But seriously, what do we feel is more important: continuing to pay someone to NOT drive a train for a combination of reasons, which includes job protection and the irrational 'making the passenger feel confident', or, the very real benefit of having a trained and equipped person available in the event of any sort of incident?

We might as well consider the consequences of this now - if the trains truly were unstaffed, as the station platforms on the Subway already are, then isn't it more likely that a demand will arise for more staff to be present to deal with potential incidents? Perhaps the Police will be called on more often to attend stations late at night, perhaps services will be cancelled as a result of 'incidents', 'incidents' which might not have arisen if there were crew on board the trains?

I'm not persuaded either way because I don't know the facts. But then neither does anyone else. Glasgow can't be compared with any other city which operates driverless trains without introducing local factors. It would be a great waste of investment if it led to some future response to 'incidents' such as closing the Subway at 8pm, or requiring regular police presence at stations, or requiring more rigourous entry checks and CCTV monitoring. This all reminds me of the shift in community policing from replacing officers with cameras back to introducing more officers on the beat!

 

[Anvil1984]

I reckon after reading through, they are probably going to switch to a DLR-esque method where a member of staff closes the doors / does customer service duties and the train drives itself, could be wrong though

 

[martinsh]

Surely it doesn't take 650 staff to run the current operation ?

 

[jon0844]

Surely it doesn't take 650 staff to run the current operation ?

On the BBC site a related story from a year ago is almost identical but says 350 staff. A mistake somewhere?

Sent from my MB525 using Tapatalk

 

[jopsuk]

Um, the 650 is presumably for ALL SPT, which includes a lot of planning and policy jobs, also running bus stations and various administration roles. Not just the Subway

 

[gordonthemoron]

after Nuremberg U2 went driverless, the company employed more drivers than previously. The trains are driven remotely and their frequency increased

 

[swt_passenger]

I'm also glad to see the mention of smartcard ticketing, but I would be keen to see a Scotland-wide scheme rather than just focusing on the SPT area.

A common UK scheme would be rather more useful - and that's why ITSO is also mandated in Scotland.

Recent developments announced by TfL in London suggest that smartcard ticketing will become out of date pretty quickly, they are definitely moving towards using credit and debit cards directly.

 

[bengley]

A common UK scheme would be rather more useful - and that's why ITSO is also mandated in Scotland.

Recent developments announced by TfL in London suggest that smartcard ticketing will become out of date pretty quickly, they are definitely moving towards using credit and debit cards directly.

That would be a pain, credit cards are not all contactless!

 

[WatcherZero]

It will be optional, a chipped electronic purse like a phone or credit card or a more traditional pre-paid card. A lot of people wont want to use a form of payment thats easily stolen.

 

[Waddon]

I can't see the natural wastage argument working on staff number reductions... if the line is going driverless, it's not going to happen over a period of time because you can't mix driver and driverless trains, there will be a changeover point, maybe a weekend, where it switches from one system to the other. So unless they're expecting a whole load of staff to just resign on that specific weekend, they are either going to have staff shortages beforehand or too many staff afterwards...

 

[jon0844]

Smartcards are as easily stolen as a credit or debit card. As it happens, my credit card is also my travel card which is also my contactless card (NFC).

If I lost that, I would be in trouble. But, I'd simply have to use cash, but I might have lost that too.

There are arguments against smartcards (and putting all your eggs in one basket) but saying it's easily stolen isn't a very big one. I have some bits of bit of paper worth around £3,500.. that's as easy to steal.

I would say that nobody would get rid of the ability to pay cash, but in London we have buses that require payment before boarding - and in Sweden, in some rural areas you must have a ticket/smartcard before boarding (and they've got both the newest type of smartcards with the oldest type of paper tickets/strips) and they don't even have machines at bus stops! That means you must have got your ticket in advance, or walk to a place to buy one (which may well be at your destination given my experience). Now that's certainly not user friendly!

But I am confused about the two different stories:

March 2011: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-glasgow-west-12687499 (650)
April 2010: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/glasgow_and_west/8624746.stm (350)

And isn't this another classic example of announcing something twice? Partially approved in 2010 to get press, then again a year later almost - but it's the same money!

 

[cle]

Is the eastern circular extension/new line off the cards then?

 

[DaveNewcastle]

Yes, the eastern loop which was being seriously evaluated in 2005 was to have cost about 2.5bn and work would have to have commenced last year if it was to be operational in time for the 2014 Commonwealth Games.
No sign of that sort of investment now.

As for the numbers of staff and job-losses due to driverless trains, it was stated that 25% of the 350 jobs would be lost.

 

[MadCommuter]

Call me cynical, but what has the Scottish Government actually agreed to? And isn't there an election in a couple of months...?

 

[swt_passenger]

It will be optional, a chipped electronic purse like a phone or credit card or a more traditional pre-paid card. A lot of people wont want to use a form of payment thats easily stolen.

Not quite, the latest proposal, reported in Modern Railways current edition, is to use the EMV 'paywave' type system, but adapted for transport purposes to just register touching in and out. The back office software will then compute the daily charge, including capping as appropriate. It won't use an 'electronic purse' or prepay system in the way Oyster does currently. Once the EMV scheme is up and running properly they'll move on to weekly capping.

Conventional Oyster style PAYG will still run in parallel, and at the same time the Oyster system will be modified to be ITSO (ie nationally) compatible.

 

[moonrakerz]

The subway is a wonderful thing, but is in dire need of an overhaul. The trains are getting tired. Stepping into a station is like stepping back in time to the '80s.

Agreed ! When I used it back in the 70s it was still like stepping back to the 80s - the 1880s ! it was absolutely awful !!

The original method of traction on this line was rope haulage powered by static steam engines. Worth a read of the history of the line.

 

[scotsman]

A welcome announcement in terms of a much needed upgrade, unfortunately the amount of time that the Subway will be closed for will seriously affect the transport needs of many Glaswegians. Also, the 25% redundancies are unacceptable - SPT could likely find the ex-Drivers work elsewhere...

 

[me123]

Agreed ! When I used it back in the 70s it was still like stepping back to the 80s - the 1880s ! it was absolutely awful !!

The original method of traction on this line was rope haulage powered by static steam engines. Worth a read of the history of the line.

Of course, in the '70s, it used the stock from the 1880s! It's obviously since been modernised, and the stock was probably great back in the day. But now, it's pretty bad. We all know how dated everything from the 60s-80s appears, and the Subway is no exception!

For some bizarre reason, SPT have never seen fit to internally refurbish the carriages and obviously never will. Even simply refreshing the interior would have left a more positive impression upon the visitor. It's always been a bit like the NHS; doesn't look particularly good, but it actually does the job pretty well.

 

[jon0844]

Sadly, my experience of the NHS is the opposite. Some buildings look great, and are done up inside but the service is appalling.

Swings and roundabouts.