There will be a two-day strike on Docklands Light Railway (DLR) next week which is expected to severely affect services.
Transport for London (TfL) is warning that at the moment, they don’t expect any DLR services to run on Tuesday 7th and Wednesday 8th November 2023 – but if any services do run, they will start late and finish early.
To be safe though, it’s probably best to assume no DLR service will run, unless the strike is called off at the last minute.
Estimated impact of DLR strike on tube map
TfL is also warning that in addition to the strike action on Tuesday and Wednesday, they expect that there might be minor disruptions on the morning of Thursday 9th November.
Tube, London Overground, Elizabeth line, Bus and IFS Cloud Cable Car services are not on strike but may be busier than usual.
For people heading to the World Travel Market at ExCeL London on 7-8 November, TfL recommends using the Elizabeth line to get to Custom House, which is next to the ExCeL exhibition centre.
Does anyone know why they are striking?
Who/what is on strike exactly? The trains?? Surely driverless trains don’t go on strike all by themselves?
The perpetual tory anti-worker call for “Driverless trains” seems a little hollow – again.
Why is the tube not like DLR driverless?
The DLR is significantly newer as a line, but even those are often manually controlled by staff onboard.
For underground trains to be driverless would at the very least require significant upgrades to trains, stations, and tracks/tunnels. All of this costs substantial amount of money, which TFL currently don’t have.
From memory the DLR tunnel at Bank has a footpath alongside it, allowing for passengers to safely alight in an emergency. By comparison most of the underground tunnels do not have such footpaths alongside them, meaning that in an emergency they’d have to exit from the front or back and walk along the track. As that requires the power on the track to be off it’s much safer to a driver on the train to be present to communicate to passengers until that can occur.
The only line where driverless might possibly be an option is the Waterloo & City line, where there’s only two stations involved.
Because it isn’t like the DLR|
As Keith said it would be incredibly expensive to convert the tube to driverless as it would take eons to install and test the equipment.
And that money would be better spend on actual improvements to existing lines and building new ones.
And if you think going driverless would end strikes then think again. No good having a fleet of driverless trains if the station assistants go on strike and the entrance doors locked or the signaller who send the trains out also goes on strike.
When the former PM was Mayor he kept ranting on about driverless trains but did zero to make it happen.
As part of the covid settlement DfT asked TFL to look at it again. I like to imagine that all TfL did was dust off the documents from the last time they were asked and add a note saying ‘all the pros and cons are the same except it’s now double / triple / twenty times the cost and when can we expect your cheque?’