Rail unions have hit out at Tory plans to run driverless trains on the Tube in London – describing them as a “blueprint for jobs and safety carnage”.
Secret documents prepared for Transport for London propose to run automatic trains with low-paid “attendants” instead of drivers and to make passengers pay for their journeys using bank cards rather than Oyster. The plans would mean mass redundancies, not just of drivers but of ticket office staff, too.
The hush hush Operational Strategy Discussion Paper proposes axing 1,500 jobs and says £2 billion could be saved by 2018.
Bob Crow, general secretary of the RMT, said automatic trains and station staff cuts will “leave passengers stranded in tunnels with no means of evacuation” and “turn platforms and stations into a paradise for muggers and vandals”.
The RMT said it will join forces with ASLEF, the TSSA and Unite “to ensure this document and it proposals are consigned to the dustbin of history”.
The TfL plan, which was written with the full support and encouragement of the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and Conservatives in the Greater London Assembly, envisages a root and branch overhaul of the Tube to break the power of the unions.
It proposes to run trains “without staff on board” and closing all but 30 of the present 258 ticket offices on the network.
