Should Whelan Resign?

[Bald Rick]

That would be rather contrary to Grayling's line but he's the one who calls passengers customers and 'it's all about the customer'.

So legitimately two person trains can be straightforwardly justified!

Quite. But that doesn't mean the second person needs to close the doors. Which is what this dispute has been about.

 

[jon0844]

I have no doubt that, at some point in the future, we'll see a form of transport resembling what we call 'trains' today operating without staff.

But, it doesn't fill me with dread as we'll both be long gone.

Your range of 10-20 years has now gone to 'ultimately one day'.

Your bets, hedge them much?

Let's see if we get some new railway services that do just this in 20 years or so. If not here, somewhere else in the world - thus proving the idea.

Of course I wasn't placing a bet so there's no money riding on it, so if I'm wrong.. Well I'm wrong.

However the speed of progress right now is quite mind blowing. And the low latency of 4.5 and 5G, with suitable coverage to gave everything connected and communicating with each other, is going to transform driving just about anything long before.

 

[Xenophon PCDGS]

Being just an occasional visitor to this thread, when will the ASLEF members be voting over this latest matter, please.

 

[Legzr1]

Let's see if we get some new railway services that do just this in 20 years or so. If not here, somewhere else in the world - thus proving the idea.

Of course I wasn't placing a bet so there's no money riding on it, so if I'm wrong.. Well I'm wrong.

However the speed of progress right now is quite mind blowing. And the low latency of 4.5 and 5G, with suitable coverage to gave everything connected and communicating with each other, is going to transform driving just about anything long before.

Yes, somewhere in the world, within 20 years, without the political meddling, with sufficient funds and foresight and all built from the ground up using latest technology.It could happen.

In the U.K. (You know, where we're based, where the forum is based) with all the hassle, lack of funding and Victorian systems including massive swathes of mechanical AB and the odd freight service?

You're wise to keep your money in your pocket

 

[jon0844]

Trains in the core on TL will be computer controlled. I find it hard to believe people don't think within a 20 year period this can't be extended to other parts of the railway, and possibly after an entire route - even before the day that someone says a train can proceed without anyone sat up front (but I suspect they will anyway, as the general public would 'feel' unsafe without - just as I doubt I'd fly on a plane without a pilot there to take over).

They'll still be driverless in the way that most people understand the term, as in a driver isn't needed but MIGHT be there as a last resort to step in.

Unions will be thinking about this problem. The industry will be discussing it. It's nice to think our railway is so behind in everything we'll never see it in our lifetime, but if we get a gradual introduction of things that make a driver less 'special' then what's to say they won't find themselves in a worse bargaining position than now?

Once a TOC can say 'don't like it, leave' and know a new driver could be recruited and trained in half the time, or even quicker, then that's a LOT of power lost.

If route knowledge isn't vital, or even signing a particular unit, then you might be able to have a driver hired in from elsewhere. This would no doubt be sold as giving drivers more flexibility, but at the same time could also mean the inevitable cuts.

There isn't really any profession that hasn't got to be considering these things. Betting on dates is silly, but thinking it isn't going to happen is naive.

I actually think 20 years is rather pessimistic as I'm sure the companies that can build a fully automated railway could do one much quicker. I also think trams are bound to be another thing that lose drivers.

Someone may well stay on the train, but they'll be downgraded and only expected to drive in exceptional circumstances.

 

[HH]

Have you seen how much the guys on DLR earn? And most of them do SFA.

 

[jon0844]

Have you seen how much the guys on DLR earn? And most of them do SFA.

I don't know, but they do take over in certain locations as a matter of course and on certain days?

This isn't a thread about automation, but my main point is that on the railway, just about every position is vulnerable. The driver, for now and admittedly some time, is relatively well shielded from change.

Train drivers today are unlikely to ever need to worry about anything. They'll retire, or be given some sort of protected status, and enjoy the benefits they've fought hard to retain.

But the next generations won't necessarily be so lucky. An easier recruitment process making people more replaceable than today, less responsibilities etc.

I don't know what anyone will do when so many jobs will go. Will people even get to travel around as much living on a basic wage from the state in lieu of a job?

 

[Carlisle]

I don't know what anyone will do when so many jobs will go. Will people even get to travel around as much living on a basic wage from the state in lieu of a job?

My mother plus many others expressed similar concerns during the 1970s but fortunately we're still waiting

 

[jon0844]

My mother plus many others expressed similar concerns during the 1970s but fortunately we're still waiting

That was not anything close to what we're all helping make happen today.

Robots doing repetitive tasks on a production line was then. Today it's robots that can move around and replace all the other things, AI that will enable Amazon, Ocado to get rid of all pickers and even deliver goods straight to lorries.

From then on, you'll still have lorries driven by real people - but that will be the next aim.

AI will also put many journalists out of work, affect people in the legal profession and also manage customer services for lots of companies. In the future, it will replace many specialists in healthcare, possibly your GP and so on.

Some roles will remain within each profession, but it will be a lot less... just like the few kept on to put robot-made items into boxes.

A friend heads up a magazine that is looking at AI and automation, and I heard about what Ocado now has coming in its warehouses (a system part developed by Amazon, and coming to ALL distribution centres in due course).

Robots that have perfect depth perception, can recognise the products and know how to handle them - from different sizes to textures (items that are hard/heavy, to light or needing specialist care). Working at lightning speed compared to normal operatives, and never getting sick. Also freely able to move around - but being aware of everything else around - so if one picker fails, it's replaced and work carries on.

Now, what happens if the system fails and they need to go back to manual picking is another story...

Maybe there will still be sufficient numbers of jobs, but more of them will be low-paid, low-skilled jobs.

 

[BestWestern]

That was not anything close to what we're all helping make happen today.

Robots doing repetitive tasks on a production line was then. Today it's robots that can move around and replace all the other things, AI that will enable Amazon, Ocado to get rid of all pickers and even deliver goods straight to lorries.

From then on, you'll still have lorries driven by real people - but that will be the next aim.

AI will also put many journalists out of work, affect people in the legal profession and also manage customer services for lots of companies. In the future, it will replace many specialists in healthcare, possibly your GP and so on.

Some roles will remain within each profession, but it will be a lot less... just like the few kept on to put robot-made items into boxes.

A friend heads up a magazine that is looking at AI and automation, and I heard about what Ocado now has coming in its warehouses (a system part developed by Amazon, and coming to ALL distribution centres in due course).

Robots that have perfect depth perception, can recognise the products and know how to handle them - from different sizes to textures (items that are hard/heavy, to light or needing specialist care). Working at lightning speed compared to normal operatives, and never getting sick. Also freely able to move around - but being aware of everything else around - so if one picker fails, it's replaced and work carries on.

Now, what happens if the system fails and they need to go back to manual picking is another story...

Maybe there will still be sufficient numbers of jobs, but more of them will be low-paid, low-skilled jobs.

Hopefully, not too long after that nightmare becomes grim reality, one of the usual suspects will finally give into temptation and start a nuclear war, so we can all be swiftly put out of our misery. Arguably preferable to slow, painful 'death by robot'.

Humankind, the most intelligent species on the planet. Also, by far, the most shockingly stupid.

 

[Bookd]

A press article today foresees lots of jobs, both 'white' and 'blue' collar being replaced by automation. The question is if this is in itself a bad thing.
I remember about 40 odd years ago when Harold Wilson and Tony Benn were planning the white heat of the technical revolution, and forecast that by the end of the century the only problem that people would have would be how to fill their leisure time.
The problem is that if this does come about such work as remains needs to be spread around so that people have something to do, and that as wealth would still be created the newly leasured classes would need to be, in some form, allocated sufficient income to maintain a decent lifestyle. The latter may not be insuperable, as those in charge would still need to have customers to keep their operations going.

 

[Legzr1]

Trains in the core on TL will be computer controlled. I find it hard to believe people don't think within a 20 year period this can't be extended to other parts of the railway, and possibly after an entire route - even before the day that someone says a train can proceed without anyone sat up front (but I suspect they will anyway, as the general public would 'feel' unsafe without - just as I doubt I'd fly on a plane without a pilot there to take over).

They'll still be driverless in the way that most people understand the term, as in a driver isn't needed but MIGHT be there as a last resort to step in.

Unions will be thinking about this problem. The industry will be discussing it. It's nice to think our railway is so behind in everything we'll never see it in our lifetime, but if we get a gradual introduction of things that make a driver less 'special' then what's to say they won't find themselves in a worse bargaining position than now?

Once a TOC can say 'don't like it, leave' and know a new driver could be recruited and trained in half the time, or even quicker, then that's a LOT of power lost.

If route knowledge isn't vital, or even signing a particular unit, then you might be able to have a driver hired in from elsewhere. This would no doubt be sold as giving drivers more flexibility, but at the same time could also mean the inevitable cuts.

There isn't really any profession that hasn't got to be considering these things. Betting on dates is silly, but thinking it isn't going to happen is naive.

I actually think 20 years is rather pessimistic as I'm sure the companies that can build a fully automated railway could do one much quicker. I also think trams are bound to be another thing that lose drivers.

Someone may well stay on the train, but they'll be downgraded and only expected to drive in exceptional circumstances.

I disagree with your timeline and your further jump from robots distinguishing apples from oranges to fully automated rail travel but it's way, way o/t.

Last word on this from me: Any current driver in their late 20s has nothing to fear. You may disagree but I see how the current system 'works' every working day and see the costs involved in changes.

 

[HH]

Costs are indeed the issue. Theoretically we're only a few years away, but the costs of actually developing a working system on just one service are huge. And what exactly are the benefits?

 

[jon0844]

Hopefully, not too long after that nightmare becomes grim reality, one of the usual suspects will finally give into temptation and start a nuclear war, so we can all be swiftly put out of our misery. Arguably preferable to slow, painful 'death by robot'.

Humankind, the most intelligent species on the planet. Also, by far, the most shockingly stupid.

I don't disagree. Just because we can, doesn't mean we should. But we are.

AI is developing at a tremendous rate. It's not quite Skynet and taking over the world, but enough to make a LOT of people redundant.

 

[bramling]

Costs are indeed the issue. Theoretically we're only a few years away, but the costs of actually developing a working system on just one service are huge. And what exactly are the benefits?

I think this is a lot of the issue - there aren't really massive benefits except in a metro application where you're trying to screw capacity out of constrained infrastructure.

Take the Metropolitan Line, which is among the small list of UK railways due to go ATO in the next few years. The case for ATO on the outer reaches is only made by having a consistent system throughout the whole railway, avoiding costly and vulnerable interfaces between systems, having to replace life-expired old equipment, and being able to do a single contract for the entire railway needing resignalling. ATO on its own will not deliver anything which conventional lineside signalling doesn't already do - in fact it introduces extra issues which don't exist today. The moment you have a compulsory member of staff on the train (whatever their role) then you are tied down to all the disadvantages of duty scheduling, training, competence management (etc), so ATO doesn't bring any benefit there. You may - eventually - get a saving in labour lost, and perhaps a lessening of union power, but in the grand scheme of things this isn't really that important. We're already down to one person per train, which is as efficient as things will go IMO.

The more rural or quiet the railway, the more the benefits of ATO simply fade away.

I'd make a predication that in 50 years time we won't have that much more ATO than we have today, and what extra ATO we do have will almost exclusively be on metro applications. Perhaps HS2 could be the exception, although even this is doubtful IMO, and only if HS2 ends up being a single-characteristic high-speed railway. If HS2 ends up taking on more attributes of a normal railway then ATO becomes less suitable.

 

[regulation9]

So, a genuine canvassing of thoughts here then, given recent events.

During the GTR dispute Mick Whelan led his membership out on strike, backed similar action by RMT members, and of course made his, shortly to be infamous no doubt, "We will not undermine the RMT" statement. He then emerges from talks, after months of industrial action, with what can only be described as a shocking result - he agrees to a vote on a poor deal, closely resembling exactly what GTR wanted all along. Who has gained, other than GTR, looks difficult to fathom.

Now then, there will of course be more detail to follow, but based on events so far, Whelan appears to look a fool. So, thoughts from Drivers, Guards, and other interested parties - after what looks a humiliating climbdown, despite his victory speech, has his position become untenable? Does he still have his members' respect? Does he need to go?

11th Jan Mick is quoted on the ASLEF website saying that the Hayes trap and drag incident means there needs to be a Guard on every train. Less than a month later and there is an agreement to run additional trains on Southern without a Guard to operate the doors. Today's material from ASLEF suggests the aim was to retain a second person on the train, but clearly that was not the objective a month ago.

I think DOO dispatch is a perfectly reasonable way to dispatch a train. There are also good reasons why the Hayes incident is not a valid case study if you want to argue against DOO dispatch. However, the point is that Mick went on record in the last month saying there should be a Guard dispatching every train. Doesn't such a rapid and dramatic change of view question credibility?

 

[Barn]

I think quite a big part of the problem is that Mick had negotiating positions, negotiating arguments to deploy in favour of those arguments, and backstop positions.

It's not an unusual strategy, but perhaps hasn't been well enough communicated. Many of his members took his negotiating arguments and believed they were his backstop positions.

I wonder how many votes have been returned already. It strikes me that Aslef perhaps should have delayed the ballot papers until it had got its view of the negotiation out among its members through branch meetings, etc.

 

[Barn]

According to Aslef there was a meeting scheduled last night at Three Bridges for members on Southern. Any intelligence on how that went? Is a 'no' vote a serious risk? Obviously some members might already have voted before the meeting.

 

[BestWestern]

According to Aslef there was a meeting scheduled last night at Three Bridges for members on Southern. Any intelligence on how that went? Is a 'no' vote a serious risk? Obviously some members might already have voted before the meeting.

Certainly a statement was rushed out attempting to persuade members that it wasa good deal, and suggesting that there had been 'misunderstanding' about the value of what was agreed. Aslef appear to be worried.

 

[D1009]

According to Aslef there was a meeting scheduled last night at Three Bridges for members on Southern. Any intelligence on how that went? Is a 'no' vote a serious risk? Obviously some members might already have voted before the meeting.

See the main DOO thread.

 

[HLE]

Realistically speaking what else could be have achieved? The OBS had already been introduced.

From that point on, DOO was a forgone conclusion.