London Overground to go completly DOO by July 2014

[swt_passenger]

There has been some progress with kit designed to auto-select for short platforms, so presumably it could be done.

The description of the Tracklink III system being fitted to SWT's fleet included the point that 'correct side door information' is presented to the TMS on the Desiros, but in the case of the 458 system although it can be derived from the beacons, it is not currently being used:

http://www.therailengineer.com/2013/04/12/being-selective/

 

[BestWestern]

There has been some progress with kit designed to auto-select for short platforms, so presumably it could be done.

The description of the Tracklink III system being fitted to SWT's fleet included the point that 'correct side door information' is presented to the TMS on the Desiros, but in the case of the 458 system although it can be derived from the beacons, it is not currently being used:

http://www.therailengineer.com/2013/04/12/being-selective/

Apologies, no chance to read that linked article yet - Does this system still only allow SDO release on Desiro stock on a 'unit by unit' basis, or have they modded them to allow individual cars/doors to release?

 

[swt_passenger]

Apologies, no chance to read that linked article yet - Does this system still only allow SDO release on Desiro stock on a 'unit by unit' basis, or have they modded them to allow individual cars/doors to release?

The article is describing the Auto SDO being fitted to the entire 450/444 and 458/5 fleet at the moment to give carriage level SDO rather than the present 'unit de-select'.

It's been discussed at length in earlier threads that you must have missed though, I was just noting that CSDE is already possible.

 

[Bald Rick]

The article is describing the Auto SDO being fitted to the entire 450/444 and 458/5 fleet at the moment to give carriage level SDO rather than the present 'unit de-select'.

It's been discussed at length in earlier threads that you must have missed though, I was just noting that CSDE is already possible.

The new Thameslink units come with CSDE operating, and for the core area at least, Auto open, i.e the driver won't open the doors, the train will (unless the dfriver overrides it).

 

[313103]

At the moment the planned train service for this coming Sunday and Monday is as follows:
Gospel Oak to Barking > No Service.
Stratford to Clapham Junction / Richmond. Amended service will run between Stratford and Willesden Junction. No service Willesden Junction to Clapham Junction / Richmond.

 

[Barn]

At the moment the planned train service for this coming Sunday and Monday is as follows:
Gospel Oak to Barking > No Service.
Stratford to Clapham Junction / Richmond. Amended service will run between Stratford and Willesden Junction. No service Willesden Junction to Clapham Junction / Richmond.

And the DOO areas such as the East London Line are operating a normal service (weekend engineering notwithstanding)? Food for thought for some passengers, I'd have thought...

 

[notadriver]

I don't think the strikes have anything to do with ASLEF?

 

[ainsworth74]

I don't think the strikes have anything to do with ASLEF?

I don't think anyone said they did?

 

[cle]

I think Surrey Quays to Clapham is off on Sunday. Hardly great for a bank holiday weekend, especially with Carnival.

 

[Skoodle]

Planned engineering works also means ELL suspended Highbury to Shadwell on Saturday and Sunday.

 

[Barn]

Planned engineering works also means ELL suspended Highbury to Shadwell on Saturday and Sunday.

Yes, I am wondering whether this was a tactic by the RMT. It really would look bad and be counterproductive to the cause if trains with guards couldn't run but DOO trains could.

This doesn't help them on Monday, but at least it's a bank holiday.

 

[Carlisle]

Planned engineering works also means ELL suspended Highbury to Shadwell on Saturday and Sunday.

Im surprised that what was opened as a virtually brand new railway 2 or so years ago allready needs lengthy closures for planned engineering work .

 

[Latecomer]

Im surprised that what was opened as a virtually brand new railway 2 or so years ago allready needs lengthy closures for planned engineering work .

There is the small matter of Crossrail at Whitechapel involving constructing a virtually new station and concourse above the Overground platforms. Whilst 'new' in the sense of new track and signalling the core infrastructure is very old and the tunnel sections between Whitechapel and Surrey Quays require inspection and upkeep. Tunnel sections in particular can't be maintained while trains are running.

 

[Carlisle]

There is the small matter of Crossrail at Whitechapel involving constructing a virtually new station and concourse above the Overground platforms. Whilst 'new' in the sense of new track and signalling the core infrastructure is very old and the tunnel sections between Whitechapel and Surrey Quays require inspection and upkeep. Tunnel sections in particular can't be maintained while trains are running.

Thanks for explaining the need for the closures

 

[313103]

Yes, I am wondering whether this was a tactic by the RMT. It really would look bad and be counterproductive to the cause if trains with guards couldn't run but DOO trains could.

This doesn't help them on Monday, but at least it's a bank holiday.

No it wasn't, RMT do not look at whether engineering works are taking place to strengthen their own position and anyway the DOO operated Euston to Watford is working as normal.

 

[bicbasher]

Saw a poster at Surrey Quays explaining the industrial action on the routes with guards, yet nothing at Forest Hill.

 

[Skoodle]

They're also doing emergency repair work to the brick wall just north of Whitechapel this weekend. Apparently it's in a very bad state and needs reinforcing. It's so bad that a notice went up that an emergency plan has been written up in case it collapses during the work. Very reassuring!

 

[Aictos]

They're also doing emergency repair work to the brick wall just north of Whitechapel this weekend. Apparently it's in a very bad state and needs reinforcing. It's so bad that a notice went up that an emergency plan has been written up in case it collapses during the work. Very reassuring!

Sounds like the footbridge at Bowes Park too, had 4 trainloads of 6 car 313s detrain there yesterday which resulted in station being evacuated because of the excess number of passengers at any one time using it!

Literally falling to bits!

 

[BestWestern]

Some interesting numbers here; been meaning to dig this out for a while now as this thread had me thinking about it. This is from the pages of an industry-wide operational safety magazine, and it is rather eye-opening. It isn't in any way top secret but nevertheless I shall refrain from naming the TOC involved. Food for thought:

"Between 5 January 2009 and 30 December 2011, [TOC X] Drivers had 151 stop shorts, with 148 releasing the doors and two passengers alighting. During the same period, there were 53 off side door releases".

In three years, to have nearly 150 reported cases of doors being released off the platform and 53 cases of the doors being released on the wrong side of the train is frankly appalling. And bear in mind of course that these are only the reported cases, there will be many more which weren't reported. Only two passengers alighted, but as this TOC operates in DC land that could easily have been two fatalities. I'm quite confident that the Guards' Competence Managers at our shack would be having kittens if we scored results like that. A short while back we had three or four cases of off-platform door releases within a month or so, which was unprecedented and of such concern to be sufficient for a significant change of operational procedure to be implemented very swiftly indeed. While the TOC above is to be commended for trying to do something about this issue, it clearly demonstrates that the practice of a Driver controlling passenger doors from a cab is not safe, and the assertion from DOO-happy TOCs that there is no safety compromise is evidently rather spurious.

Anyway, as I said, food for thought.

 

[OxtedL]

Some interesting numbers here; been meaning to dig this out for a while now as this thread had me thinking about it.

If it's a DC land TOC on which the driver opens the doors that doesn't leave many options for who it is, given it isn't LOROL. All of the possible candidates operated a quantity of train services that is at minimum several orders of magnitude bigger than the number of incidents in the data in the quoted 2 year period, if anyone is struggling to find context. Any such incident is concerning, of course, and the industry is doubtless working hard to understand and mitigate against the risk factors at play.

And bear in mind of course that these are only the reported cases, there will be many more which weren't reported.

Whilst I don't have anything to contradict you here, would drivers really risk not reporting something like a wrong side opening or non-trivial short stop in the modern environment? I've always got the impression that train drivers are a highly monitored workforce, and not reporting an incident that threatens passenger safety is surely a guaranteed way to get yourself an unplanned exit from employment?

 

[BestWestern]

If it's a DC land TOC on which the driver opens the doors that doesn't leave many options for who it is, given it isn't LOROL. All of the possible candidates operated a quantity of train services that is at minimum several orders of magnitude bigger than the number of incidents in the data in the quoted 2 year period, if anyone is struggling to find context. Any such incident is concerning, of course, and the industry is doubtless working hard to understand and mitigate against the risk factors at play.


Whilst I don't have anything to contradict you here, would drivers really risk not reporting something like a wrong side opening or non-trivial short stop in the modern environment? I've always got the impression that train drivers are a highly monitored workforce, and not reporting an incident that threatens passenger safety is surely a guaranteed way to get yourself an unplanned exit from employment?

Official figures are rarely a true and honest total. I'm not suggesting that any grades within the railway are institutionally dishonest, but there will always be unreported incidents. When mistakes are happening on such a frequent basis as this, there will almost certainly be a culture in some quarters that it clearly isn't a big issue as it's going on all the time. Not only that, but the chances are there will be Drivers to whom it will have happened more than once, and in a supposedly strict safety culture the willingness to play by the rules can run thin if there is a concern that it might not do you any favours. A former DOO Driver told me a while back that it was very common for door release incidents to take place, and there was a sizeable proportion which slipped under the radar. His feelings were that, as is so often the case, the routine nature of the job caused most of the mistakes. An example he recalled was of pulling up to a red aspect on the approach to a station and releasing the doors, out of pure habit - you stop, you open the doors, hundreds of times a day, it isn't difficult to see the potential for a mistake.

As for 'context', those figures are alarmingly high regardless of how many services the TOC might be running. What is particularly relevant to this thread, hence my posting it, was the clear illustration that, in this respect, DOO is quite clearly less safe than a train where the Guard has control of the doors.

 

[Carlisle]

These stats do not sound good but wont the longer term answer to these door release problems be technology related ,as other posters have described systems allready exist on the tube for drivers and are also being developed for the guards on SWT units

 

[BestWestern]

These stats do not sound good but wont the longer term answer to these door release problems be technology related ,as other posters have described systems allready exist on the tube for drivers and are also being developed for the guards on SWT units

I strongly suspect you are right, yes, although we don't know that such systems will arrive before DOO. Perhaps installation of that technology should be a requirement that is fulfilled prior to dispensing with Guards? Seems a perfectly sensible suggestion.

Assuming that these figures are representative of the network as a whole, which I would safely assume they will be, it is concerning that TOCs apparently consider the above situation to represent no greater safety risk than having Guards and much lower incident rates, which of course is the basis, publicly anyhow, for their arguments to switch. Clearly, if the train doors are being released where they shouldn't, there is a danger to passengers. The less of that danger exists, the safer things are.

 

[Monty]

These stats do not sound good but wont the longer term answer to these door release problems be technology related ,as other posters have described systems allready exist on the tube for drivers and are also being developed for the guards on SWT units

To my knowledge no such technology is being fitted to SWT's units that would prevent a wrong side release of the doors. Though there is ASDO that has been previously mentioned that is being introduced, however even this isn't fail safe and requires the guard to check that the train is accommodated correctly on the platform.

 

[Carlisle]

I strongly suspect you are right, yes, although we don't know that such systems will arrive before DOO. Perhaps installation of that technology should be a requirement that is fulfilled prior to dispensing with Guards? Seems a perfectly sensible suggestion.

Assuming that these figures are representative of the network as a whole, which I would safely assume they will be, it is concerning that TOCs apparently consider the above situation to represent no greater safety risk than having Guards and much lower incident rates, which of course is the basis, publicly anyhow, for their arguments to switch. Clearly, if the train doors are being released where they shouldn't, there is a danger to passengers. The less of that danger exists, the safer things are.

I agree if the stats are all as bad as the ones you quote here then the relevant technology should be a condition of future doo plans
--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

To my knowledge no such technology is being fitted to SWT's units that would prevent a wrong side release of the doors. Though there is ASDO that has been previously mentioned that is being introduced, however even this isn't fail safe and requires the guard to check that the train is accommodated correctly on the platform.

Thanks for explaining the technology i thought it was going to be failsafe clearly i was wrong ,cheers

 

[swt_passenger]

To my knowledge no such technology is being fitted to SWT's units that would prevent a wrong side release of the doors. Though there is ASDO that has been previously mentioned that is being introduced, however even this isn't fail safe and requires the guard to check that the train is accommodated correctly on the platform.

The rail engineer mag article described the Desiro system (ie not the 458/5) as follows:

The Siemens Desiro trains of Classes 444 and 450 have a modern Train Management System (TMS) that services the whole unit and thus a reader has only been fitted to every cab vehicle. The reader picks up data from the beacon and enters this into the TMS via an RS485 communication port. All readers are active but only one is needed to acquire the platform information. The TMS will then know where the train is, if it is due to stop at the station, which side the platform will be and which doors to release if it is a short platform. The stopping accuracy by the driver is based upon ± 2 metres from the platform marker point.

That's no guarantee, but it's the explanation of why I posted what I did...

 

[OxtedL]

Official figures are rarely a true and honest total. I'm not suggesting that any grades within the railway are institutionally dishonest, but there will always be unreported incidents.

I'm happy to accept that some will go unreported - I can think of an incident discussed on this forum where the driver had stopped short, opened the doors and then eventually departed in a sequence that suggested he was oblivious to the problem.

I still maintain that with the sheer quantity of data available to driving standards teams, door incidents must be becoming more easily detectable by back office methods with every day that passes, so one would hope that reporting is continuously improving.

Short stopping is going to mainly be a hazard on routes where trains run in a variety of train lengths, so I'd suggest that it'll always be less of a concern for LO with it's near uniform fleet. We have discussed how wrong side door opening could theoretically be mitigated against at most locations using whatever system is used to monitor SDO just by adding a small amount of extra data to the system. It'll be interesting to see what measures LOROL feel are necessary to implement as DOO gets closer to rollout.

 

[Carlisle]

With most modern post privatisation units SWT aside , the driver is responsible for releasing the doors,and the guard closing and dispatching i wonder how the stats for door incidents compare with the full DOO routes

 

[313103]

It'll be interesting to see what measures LOROL feel are necessary to implement as DOO gets closer to rollout.

Well lets just say LOROL are refusing to give the safety validation certificate to the reps because in their words 'You will use this against us' which tells me that it is flawed! otherwise they would have freely given it.

 

[Monty]

The rail engineer mag article described the Desiro system (ie not the 458/5) as follows:


That's no guarantee, but it's the explanation of why I posted what I did...

It's interesting to say the least, but I will wonder how they would implement that considering to release doors on the right you need to be on a right hand side GOP (guard operating panel) and the same for releasing doors on the left, the only exception is operating doors from a driving cab though you do have one set of controls for one side and vice versa. Personally I don't see it being implemented, the company has be handing out regular briefings on the HLOS and ASDO projects and this is the first I've heard of it.

Well lets just say LOROL are refusing to give the safety validation certificate to the reps because in their words 'You will use this against us' which tells me that it is flawed! otherwise they would have freely given it.

Begging my pardon for my ignorance but what does the safety validation certificate entail? Is set of specifications that must be met for DOO(P) to be permissible?