A missed opportunity to break union power
Travellers on the London Underground will from today notice a new colour on the Tube map, a purple-bordered white line denoting the Crossrail link running from east to west through the capital. The Elizabeth Line, as it is officially known, has been decades in the planning and opens for business some four years behind schedule after 13 years of construction at a cost of £20 billion.
The link is yet to be completed, with connections to Reading still to open; but this engineering marvel passing through nine new stations is the first major innovation since the Jubilee Line extension opened in 1999.
It is a state-of-the-art transport link with one important proviso: the new Class 345 trains will be manned even though they are, in theory, able to operate automatically. This line was an opportunity for part of the network to go fully automated but this has been resisted, not least by the transport unions. The Elizabeth Line will have about 140 drivers and is a spurned chance to exploit new technology to the full.
Many passengers are doubtless relieved to know that there is a driver on board, even unnecessarily, and since the Elizabeth Line will eventually share the mainline infrastructure with other trains there are safety considerations that make the automated option hard to promote.
Yet the threat by transport unions to stage a complete shutdown of the railways next month is focusing attention on the future viability of train and metro networks across the UK. Among their demands is a 10 per cent pay rise for staff, hardly a surprising request with inflation approaching double figures. The problem for the unions, however, is that the Underground and mainline services are losing money as passenger numbers that collapsed during the pandemic fail to recover.
Until a few years ago, the railways were booming with the highest usage since the 1920s, but that has all been reversed by the economic shutdown. With many commuters no longer working in the office full-time, the financial impact has been considerable. Transport for London is effectively bust and some Tube links face being closed for days at a time to ameliorate the funding crisis.
Unions asking for more money and no job cuts may be representing their members’ interests, but the Government needs to consider those of the public. Using the opportunities offered by technological advances would have been a start.