All lifts on the DLR network going down due to a communication failure

[JulienD]

Around 18h on 28/2, all the lifts on the DLR network were taken out of service because of a communication failure. All of them!

Now what could possibly have gone wrong to take ALL the lifts down?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Mar 2026 ==

And the lifts haven't recovered yet! Most of the lifts are still broken!

 

[The exile]

The most likely sounds like the emergency call system. Ie the lifts still worked but the emergency buttons didn’t.

 

[JulienD]

The most likely sounds like the emergency call system. Ie the lifts still worked but the emergency buttons didn’t.

Ah, so if someone got stuck in the lift at an unmanned station and didn't have a working phone to call 999 they would probably be screwed!

That makes sense, but how did the emergency phone fail in ALL of the lifts at once? Or does it go to some centralised location before out to emergency services/lift company?

 

[The exile]

I’m sure that this isn’t the case here, but I’m sure I remember reading of some similar event that turned out to be nothing to do with technology but a vermin-infestation of the central control.

 

[Taunton]

Ah, so if someone got stuck in the lift at an unmanned station and didn't have a working phone to call 999 they would probably be screwed!

That makes sense, but how did the emergency phone fail in ALL of the lifts at once? Or does it go to some centralised location before out to emergency services/lift company?

If I'm not mistaken pressing the emergency button on a lift also sets off a flashing blue light at the platform level, independent of the phone circuit, which each train attendant can look out for at each station during any such comms failure.

 

[Ken X]

This happened to me once whilst inspecting several lifts in a multi storey car park at stupid o'clock in the morning.

We discovered that none of the emergency phones were dialling out. Contacted the owners duty engineer and served paperwork requiring immediate rectification. Effectively I closed the car park.

By the morning rush the owner had placed a bod at every lift with a mobile phone to monitor operation and report any problems to the duty engineer.

The lift maintainer traced the fault to a common circuit board which handled all the phone lines in the properties lifts. It had died due to water ingress. A separate board was fitted to each lift to prevent a reoccurrence of the problem.

These days a lot of lifts have a sim card in the emergency phone and I've known these to cause the occasional problem due to communication faults or programming issues. Sounds like a global issue.

 

[LondonExile]

Ah, so if someone got stuck in the lift at an unmanned station and didn't have a working phone to call 999 they would probably be screwed!

That makes sense, but how did the emergency phone fail in ALL of the lifts at once? Or does it go to some centralised location before out to emergency services/lift company?

Most likely where they call to, rather than where they call from, although it isn't impossible for them to all be connected to a TfL internal phone system.

Certainly our lift lines at work (non-railway) go to site security first, then if no answer, try an external alarm receiving centre. They don't go directly to 999

 

[EYFanatic]

Around 18h on 28/2, all the lifts on the DLR network were taken out of service because of a communication failure. All of them!

Now what could possibly have gone wrong to take ALL the lifts down?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 2 Mar 2026 ==

And the lifts haven't recovered yet! Most of the lifts are still broken!

Are these lifts SOLELY on the DLR network or does it include those lifts at joint tube/DLR?