Liz Bonnin looks at the moving blocks that automated trains, such as London's Docklands Light Railway use to keep their system running smoothly at full capacity. Subscribe for more awesome science - www.youtube.com... / headsqueezetv
....Will revolutionise,, its been done before... look on RU-vid .... "Automatic Tube Train Aka New Look Transport (1968)" .. The Victoria Line and Also,, "Looking at London: Victoria Line, 1969,", skip >> 13m 45s
Very interesting video, I've often wondered how the DLR works, and it's fascinating to see that it uses such a simple concept to track it's position! I had assumed it would use some sort of GPS system, but I suppose that isn't reliable enough.
GPS is not generally used for trains because having two-dimensional coordinates for a vehicle that moves in one dimension is overkill and it's not precise enough.
@@MrRolnicek maintenance, since you would need very sophisticated devices along whole lines, which isn't much for an underground line, but it's much for entire railways
+Gopinath Muruti I don't like machines taking over all our jobs but our tube drivers just constantly strike because they want more and they really don't do all that much compared to bus drivers who navigate traffic and people. So if the tube drivers lose their jobs I really wouldn't care.
+Gopinath Muruti Transportation's a dying industry. Truck drivers, pilots, ship captains, they're all going to be out of jobs when the robots take over. However, given the number of deadly accidents caused by human error, especially on the roads, this is definitely not a bad thing overall.
***** No. Sorry about by comment but it was just a little rant about are tube drivers. If they don't want to be replaced though they should try harder to not annoy the public and management all the time.
+kammak743 if you actually talk to tube staff why they go on strike, then you realise that they are human, and tbh they have a valid reason. Even those who aren't part of the RMT or some other union. Anyway the minutes lost to strikes isn't much compared to failures on the engineering side, just my opinion and I stand by tube staff and drivers.
Why on earth the BBC didn’t brand ‘bang goes the theory’ as ‘tomorrow’s world’ I can not understand… Tomorrow’s world was a flagship brand and its scandalous that its been left to die. Come on BBC.. bring back tomorrow’s world… and bring it bang upto date… I might actually start watching the BBC. again if the shows got better.
In Vancouver, we have had this exact same ATC system deployed for over 30 years with the SkyTrain, now running almost 80KM of track. But I do appreciate the technical depth of the BBC video and the simple explanation of key concepts. Neat to see the loop crossovers on the o-scope.
DLR has different automation level compared to Skytrain though, DLR run on GoA 3 automation that requires onboard staff to open/close doors, unlike GoA 4 on Skytrain that allow the train to be left unattended.
+ChaosPotato every station (not just the DLR) has a full set of cameras, sensors and emergency stop systems. The sensors are not on the train, however, the all stop signal is automated across the underground system - even in the train with drivers if someone steps onto the tracks, the nearby trains will immediately stop. Sadly, there isn't much you can do without the physical barriers like on the Jubilee line to stop people leaping in front of the train at the last second.
+SchneiderMan There's also fallback systems, such as old fashioned track circuits, the rotation sensors they mentioned, and I'd be willing to bet the trains all have GPS on board. Also, cutting the cables would be a lousy terrorist attack, as any sensible engineer would design the trains to stop if they have no idea where they are, so there wouldn't be any casualties unless you timed it excessively well.
It would be nice if this was actually the very near future but with the RMT union i don't see it being easy. I don't see why people are so against this anyway, saying how people will lose jobs and it might even be unsafe. Here's the deal, if all train lines on the tube did go driverless we mightt lost 1 driver/job per train, sure, i'll give you that. But in return each train can hold a couple dozen more people because there wouldn't need to be a driver section. So thats already several thousand(10s of thousands?) of people being benefited by it heavily. Then if it makes trains run ore regularly and on time then that would benefit everyoneee who uses the trains, that''s probably over a million people every day. So sure a few hundred jobs might be lost, but millions of peoples journeys would be better and faster every day. But heres the thing, it doesn't mean a job is lost anyway. With the DRL(the trains shown in the video) they have a staff member on every train doing more helpful things with the passengers. So no jobs are lost there and in return you have more staff members assisting you. Is there a problem with that too? We can't hold back progress because of saving a few jobs. Otherwise we would all be making journeys on horse carriages so that the horse drivers(or whatever) won't be lost to cars. We would all be paying a huge amount more for all the tech we buy because we wouldn't want a machine to build any of it. We wouldn't allow online shopping sites like Amazon because people would lose their jobs at stores due to lower demand. And a load of other stuff. Automated trains are such a minor thing job loss wise and it has many more benefits.
The problem isn't the technology, it's the loss of jobs and unemployment I mean we're at a point where most manual labour jobs can be done away within our current economic system there would be mass unemployment which would be okay if we done away with money. Sadly the current state of capitalism is actually holding back innovation
alex Di Folco-McQuire But in relation to automated trains i've covered that point in my comment. With the DLR there were no fewer jobs than if the trains weren/t driverless.
It is because it shares the same roots. The "SEL" in "Thales SELTrac" (made and brand of the system) comes from Standard Elektrik Lorenz, a german company which merged later to become Alcatel SEL, sold to Thomson CSF which became Thales. That same SEL developed the LZB for the Deutsche Bahn in parallel with SELTrac (at that moment for BVG, the public transport operator of West Berlin) in the 1970ies and in the early 80ies it became reliable systems which were then deployed on thousands of km of track for LZB and exported on many metro networks for SELTrac (among others the DLR and London Underground lines)
and no greedy gangsters ( unionised drivers) going on strike every year! fantastic! they should make the whole london tube system driverless - fire the gangsters who hold us hostage every year!
Unfortunately DLR still require a staff onboard for safe operation as they run on GoA 3 automation, unlike GoA 4 that can be left completely unattended. However even a full automation doesn't prevent control room and station staff strike though.
+musicalaviator Oh I'm sure that's what Metro is aiming for amongst other ridiculous demands of their employees, but just think about the cost of removing every single level crossing, pedestrian crossing, and fencing off the entire network. That's before you even start spending money on the actual signalling system or the trains.
+musicalaviator it's because of the nearly useless search engine attached to RU-vid. It saw" train" and assumed you were interested in anything with a train in it. You're lucky you didn't get a "bridal train" on the top of the list.
Tell me in this day and age why do we need train drivers? Trains only go forward slow down speed up and brake. Oh that's right the unions who insist its for safety even though the overwhelming cause of train accidents is actually caused by the drivers themselves.
Gavin Sharp Well let's say a sudden fault popped up on a train. A driver could easily fix this problem than someone dashing through congested traffic to fix it. Additionally, would you rather be safe than sorry?
Well yes I do believe you should do your own fact checking you challenged the original poster in quite an arsey way without any facts and all I did was point out that the accident reports from very minor to some of the worlds worst accidents, will support what they said.
Here in Toronto we're dealing with dozens of weekend closures on our subway system as they slowly implement ATC (Automated Train Control) which is something a bit similar. I can so easily see the head of the biggest union quashing ANY talk of doing away with drivers. *NOT* because of people losing their jobs, but because fewer drivers means fewer union members means less power for him and his cronies. (The Scarboro RT, which is only slightly older then the DLR, was supposed to operate the same way, but the union made such a big stink they still have drivers.)
Maybe it's just in our country, but i would be worried what is some idiot cuts the wire and/or steals it? Otherwise awesome idea, but i would prefer GNSS - positioning for every train using satellites GPS/GLOBASS/GALILEO..
probably because unless they were electromagnetic you wouldn't notice they were gone and secondly magnets degrade over time admittedly is a long time but its hastened by stuff like fluctuations in temperature and what's going on in the surrounding environment
It happens in Denmark aswell with people stealing the cable. But only on the S-train thats manned. I don't think it have happen on the unmanned metro yet.
+Lukáš Artek But who would be stupid enough to stand on a railway, with trains coming every 15 minutes or whatever it is? It'd definitely take up more than 15 minutes to take out 25m of wire ^_^
If someone cuts the wire they system detects that there is a fault and stops all the trains in the area. GPS isn't accurate enough to be used for train position and dosent work underground.
***** Apples are free. Commerce and government are one symbiotic entity that need each other to exist. 3D protein printers cannot come about by chance and then self replicate. Physical is slowed down energy. Gravity is an illusion.
+mill101 This is no new system, it's been there since almost 30 years ago. Did it change the Tube? And even if it did, there's still staff needed on the trains to operate them, they are not fully automatic like other similar systems.
mill101 yes but one small signal fault can cause a major disruption and recovery will be slow seen in the circle line singapore disruption where a signal fault causes trains to hit the emergency breaks and staff are required to walk in the tunnels to access the trains and manual drive it ti the next stop where the signalling can than be reset investigation that a rogue train was to be blamed
It is not as safe the DLR as shown in this film., Anyone beeing on the tracks will face highly to be overun as the driverless trains has no obstacles sensors on the front. Try as passenger in the train or on the platform to stop an oncoming train. If one presses the alarm the train won't stop immediatly. The process to bring a DLR train to emergency stop is too lengthy and people lost their life whilst either fallen ill on the platform and fallen on the tracks or been pushed or lately standing on the track. , There is not enough time and the cctv operator room can't monitor all the stations and tracks, that's is what they say.
Interesting. I've noticed these loops on the commuter rail and subways of the MBTA. But they still use drivers on both. I've often thought that train systems, relatively speaking would be the easiest systems to automate. " And me - I've taken the MBTA Red Line from Braintree end to Central. I can tell you that I used to commute from South Station to Central - nice quick ride but then it was only about 3.2 miles. Now I'm working in Quincy it's 6.2 miles. However I note the trains move much slower on the southern end of the Red Line. A lot due to congestion I'm sure.
+kd1s Even with drivers, the system helps the control room to know where all the trains are, and helps the drivers know how fast to go, and when to speed up and slow down.
I would at least still have a dude up front who could press an emergency stop button just in case things go wrong. Which, according to Merphy's law, will.
+Bungle2010 That means the need of an emeregncy stop button more needed. Bit of a saying. The longer you go without an accident the closer you are to one
Trains that have been running for 30 years with no serious accidents. In fact, the 2 times any sort of accident has happened on the DLR was when someone was driving the train.
Driverless is the future of all transport. Be it underground, rail, buses, taxis, cars, planes even. One day transport will be far safer than it is today and capacity higher. 70% of all plane accidents are caused by pilot error for example. How many 'accidents' are there on the road and how many caused by driver error?
First time I've came across Liz Bonnin. Immediately, I was enchanted by her. Her voice reminds me of Marina Sirtis of TNG fame... This lady needs to make more informative flics like this. Instant attention grabber
Singapore Train Systems also uses this Technologies and soon GPS "SMART" technologies will be soon introduced to Singapore in the 2020s and the ALL Existing Manual Operated will be REPLACED by this System.
In my old stamping ground there are coal trains with 50 or 100 wagons each grossing about 73 tonnes, mixing in with pendolino passenger trains and ordinary mixed freight, diesel and electric hauled. Much but not all is single track working over distances of up to 300km. Obviously stopping distances and train speed vary enormously. On this London light railway, train mass is always nearly the same. I suspect that moving blocks would be rather more difficult to set up with mixed coal freight and passenger trains.
For main lines, ERTMS is basically the same, but it uses eurobalises that respond to radio signals instead of cable loops. Sadly, it's gonna take decades before that becomes mainstream.
Very well put @bungle2010. Automating everything from checkout tills to trains is all well and good but with every automation there is a redundancy and without paying customers trains dont run and shops don't open
Actually someone died recently after falling onto the track at a station and the passengers at the front of the train couldn’t get to the emergency stop button on time
NoYourself For a large object like a tree there would probably be sensors or track CCTV to alert people at a control room and/or on the train. As for people, like the other guy said not much you can do. Someone died recently after falling onto the tracks at a station
This is the problem, it doesn't stop. There is no sensors on the trains , the cctv personel can't pick it up on time as they can't watch all the stations nor tracks. I witnessed recently a fatal suicide attempt and tried to stop the oncoming train but I haven't been picked up on camera waving and shouting nor the passengers in the train comprehend the situation. He did not jump! He must have been longer waiting on the tracks. It is very traumatic.If one sits on the front they literally see it and there is no alarm button on the front inside. The person was not the first one strucked. If you do research you find other victims they did not want to dye but fallen down ill , one pushed and one went to close to the edge and fallen down and were overun. So this is minimum 4 fatalities in the last couple of years. Not sure about the near miss. Sadly the man passed recently . R.I.P
is anyone else who lives in London excited to see when driverless trains come to the tube, tons of jobs are lost even though tfl said there wouldn't be and then the whole transport network goes into the longest strike we've ever had and everyone's playing the London underground song out loud with rage.
these trains do have drivers they just monitor not drive unless told over wise they have a emergency panel they can use to drive and they also have train driving experience
Most deep level tube lines are already automatic,the entire system will be driver less in 5 years.at the moment a member of staff,who is called the train operator remains in the cab controlling the door operation.in the near future this will change and the member of staff will travel somewhere on the train.two serious problems with this,any track related danger will not be registered by a driver less train,and without doubt one day a train will catch fire in the tube tunnel.weather it takes 5years or 25 years it will happen.if that happens in peak period it would be catastrophic.
it's an interesting system I know computers can do jobs like counting the number of revolutions the wheel has turned or number of Loops passed but both of those methods are prone to cumulative error on a small scale it wouldn't matter but if you were doing it on a country or a continent the tiny errors would eventually add up and the train could be anything between a metre and half a kilometre away from its reported location although this could be solved by putting GPS systems on the train
combining systems fixes that. For instance, you could have checkin points every few km where the train "logs in". Then any calculations are done from that point.
+frank cusack Redundancy's the name of the game here, they have a bunch of different ways to tell where trains are. I don't know this for a fact, but I'd be willing to bet that the trains have GPS on them, although I doubt it's used in general operation, probably just to locate stopped trains. Also, the loops are not prone to cumulative errors, only the wheel sensors. The chances of the sensor "missing" a crossover is basically zero, and the crossover points never change, so in effect the loops are log points.
