Comment: Transport systems down the tubes

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 23 Sep 2002 at 11:48

Comment: With Britain's transport system on the verge of collapse, technology hasn't actually improved matters

The Tube drivers are revolting ('Ooh I know,' titters the Carry On fan) over proposed privatisation measures, and the ensuing strikes have brought transport wrangles to the fore once again. Every time London's Tube drivers strike, someone of the Telegraph-reading mentality suggests automated trains on London's Underground.

'Let's face it,' they say, 'all they have to do is press go and stop - it's not as if they can get lost or have to deal with congestion.' And they have a point. The Docklands Light Railway has been running driverless trains since it opened in 1987. It has a good safety record and is widely regarded as one of London's better transport solutions.

Although the company had to install guards on trains to comfort a sceptical public, the computerised guidance and management system has been something of a victory. But it's a lone success story, with many other high-tech implementations going off the rails.

More than ten years later, the Jubilee Line extension was opened among a myriad of problems. Completed late and more than £1 billion over budget, the brains of the line was supposed to be a computerised signal system that allowed more trains to pass along the tunnels than on any other track.

With sensors throughout the tunnel network, the Westinghouse software was expected to control the flow of trains for maximum capacity, but, frankly, my five-year-old nephew runs his wooden train set more efficiently, and he has to consider more than one straight line between two termini.

In practice, the sensors detected non-existent problems so the computer shut down all trains for no reason. The result was a £100 million taxpayer bill to replace the system. That was back in July 2001, and anyone who travels on the Jubilee Line will tell you the situation has yet to improve.

Last year, a major train company spent millions on new rolling stock, only to withdraw the trains from service when software on the on-board computers made them untenable.

Oddly enough, the railways have hit back at the computer networks. Last year, the Code Red worm was reportedly hampering the traffic around the Internet, but it transpired the network slowdown was not the fault of the virus but rather a freight train fire that burnt through a major network pipeline.

But the reliance on computers at the heart of our transport networks isn't only a problem concerning the rail networks. Early July saw the central system that controls London's traffic lights crash, turning central London into a scene from the Italian Job.

Transport for London's SCOOT (Split Cycle and Offset Optimisation Technique) traffic management system needed new rules uploaded, but the rules conflicted and jammed both the system and traffic.

It's another example of how we're so reliant on systems that, when they fail - and we all know they do - our essential non-IT infrastructure falls to pieces.
Problems on the tracks and roads, however, are a different animal to those in the air, where there are no alternative routes and a minor prang would be a disaster.

Three times this year so far, thousands of business and holiday travellers have been stranded in Stansted or gutted at Gatwick as NATS' (National Air Traffic Services) new computer-driven control centre in Swanwick went belly up. Not to mention the international embarrassment this causes, or the disruption caused to people's journeys, these crises cost millions in lost productivity.