It seems to be getting more regular that we hear of comms faults on Metrolink, often leading to suspension of the entire network. It must be at least 3 times this year so far that such an incident has happened whereby the whole network ends up affected, in some cases for hours at a time. Whilst I appreciate the system appears failsafe, insomuch as no comms = no movements, I would have expected a modern system to have higher resiliency in not grounding what is a large network.
The most recent incident was on Saturday (which I believe was a combination of a failed tram in the city centre coupled with a comms failure) which I ended up in the middle of.
With family, we were travelling from Whitefield into the city heading for Manchester Arena. We arrived at Whitefield at around 18:30 and a tram arrived as we walked onto the platform - single and fairly well loaded, but with the boards saying a couple of minutes to the next, a double, we didn't rush too much buying tickets. By the time we had bought the tickets, the single tram was stil sat there, with a green signal ahead. I actually passed comment to my family that such a wait was very unusual for Metrolink and suspected either the tram had a fault or there was a comms error - knowing what a comms error meant for this network.
The single eventually left but the next tram didn't arrive for probably 5 minutes, the boards not updating in the meantime, stuck at 1 min throughout. When it did arrive, we left promptly and all went well, until we arrived at Heaton Park, as the driver immediately said we would be waiting a while as there was a comms problem. We waited and waited and there was no update for at least 10 mins - this update was from the driver saying a tram was coming the other way so maybe things were getting back to normal. At this point, I took to the Beta TfGM Travel site which showed all lines suspended! Another tram passed Bury bound, out of service and non stop (in itself a very unusual occurence!)
We eventually gave up on the tram, still no update some half an hour later, and went for a bus having being pointed in the right direction by a fellow passenger - by now it was also raining. As we waited for a bus which also didn't turn up, the TfGM site showed the Bury line was operating again with severe delays so back across the road we went, getting a tram towards 2CC and arriving at the Arena just after the 20:00 event advertised start.
The two things that stood out was again, a comms failure had completed grounded the entire network. It feels like a system should be much more resilient to this but Metrolink keeps proving it isn't, since it isn't an isolated case. Also, in such circumstances, does that also leave the drivers without any information as it seemed I was getting more from the beta travel site whilst the drivers information was based on what may be happening from the tram moving in the other direction? (I did also wonder if that move was authorised because the extreme end of the Bury line works on old signalling and block sections)
The most recent incident was on Saturday (which I believe was a combination of a failed tram in the city centre coupled with a comms failure) which I ended up in the middle of.
With family, we were travelling from Whitefield into the city heading for Manchester Arena. We arrived at Whitefield at around 18:30 and a tram arrived as we walked onto the platform - single and fairly well loaded, but with the boards saying a couple of minutes to the next, a double, we didn't rush too much buying tickets. By the time we had bought the tickets, the single tram was stil sat there, with a green signal ahead. I actually passed comment to my family that such a wait was very unusual for Metrolink and suspected either the tram had a fault or there was a comms error - knowing what a comms error meant for this network.
The single eventually left but the next tram didn't arrive for probably 5 minutes, the boards not updating in the meantime, stuck at 1 min throughout. When it did arrive, we left promptly and all went well, until we arrived at Heaton Park, as the driver immediately said we would be waiting a while as there was a comms problem. We waited and waited and there was no update for at least 10 mins - this update was from the driver saying a tram was coming the other way so maybe things were getting back to normal. At this point, I took to the Beta TfGM Travel site which showed all lines suspended! Another tram passed Bury bound, out of service and non stop (in itself a very unusual occurence!)
We eventually gave up on the tram, still no update some half an hour later, and went for a bus having being pointed in the right direction by a fellow passenger - by now it was also raining. As we waited for a bus which also didn't turn up, the TfGM site showed the Bury line was operating again with severe delays so back across the road we went, getting a tram towards 2CC and arriving at the Arena just after the 20:00 event advertised start.
The two things that stood out was again, a comms failure had completed grounded the entire network. It feels like a system should be much more resilient to this but Metrolink keeps proving it isn't, since it isn't an isolated case. Also, in such circumstances, does that also leave the drivers without any information as it seemed I was getting more from the beta travel site whilst the drivers information was based on what may be happening from the tram moving in the other direction? (I did also wonder if that move was authorised because the extreme end of the Bury line works on old signalling and block sections)
