Interesting Links for 30-11-2024

[andrewducker]

1. Car tires shed a quarter of all microplastics in the environment. (6 million tons per year)

(tags:plastic pollution cars transport )

2. What happens next to bill on assisted dying?

(tags:law uk death suicide )

3. Ridiculous sports you probably didn't know existed

(tags:sports video wtf )

4. Upgrading the London Underground for driverless trains would cost tens of billions to save hundreds of millions per year, taking centuries to pay off

(tags:transport tube London automation )

Comments

[toothycat]

Driverless trains aside, signal passed at danger should not be a thing that is possible. We've had the tech for decades. It is 2024. Trains should brake automatically when passing a red light. Tech isn't complicated, and can be retrofitted. Other countries do this.

[andrewducker]

I'm all in favour of automating safety.

signal passed at danger

[bens_dad]

signal passed at danger should not be a thing that is possible

If the train brakes automatically when it passes the red light, that is a SPAD, but should not be a problem, as long as the brakes stop the train.

This term covers equipment fitted to trains and on the track that reduces the consequences of a train passing a signal at danger, by automatically applying the train's brakes. These systems do not prevent SPADs, but they do reduce the risks posed by SPADs.
The train protection and warning system (TPWS) has been installed across the network and is successfully reducing SPAD risk.
There have been a number of potential collisions prevented by TPWS.
https://www.orr.gov.uk/guidance-compliance/rail/health-safety/infrastructure/signals-passed-danger

Re: signal passed at danger

[toothycat]

...I did not know that. Thanks! I'd been thinking e.g. of the Salisbury crash, but reading up on it now, the driver and the automation both applied brakes, and the train failed to stop in time despite this.

[armiphlage]

Tripcocks have been around since the 19th century. When a signal light turns red, a motor raises a metal bar. If a train passes, the bar hits a brake lever on the train bogies to activate the emergency brakes.

It doesn't always work, as the metal bar has to be aligned with the brake lever on the train. Wear on rails, wheels, and levers contributed to a crash in 1995 in Toronto; the bar hit a bolt on the train instead of the brake lever.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_stop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Russell_Hill_subway_accident

4

[danieldwilliam]

If driverless trains very very expensive because you need to change lots of other things to make them work that implies that the cost-benefit calculation might be more favourable if you already had to replace all the rolling stock on a line. Which is a once in a 50 (?) year event for each line. Certainly decades.

During which time there will improvements in automation and other changes to how things work.

Seems like a wait and see approach is the right one.

Re: 4

[andrewducker]

Yeah. Worth looking at as part of a programme of general upgrades, so that you can do it over the long term.