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London Underground has begun the process for the purchase of driverless trains. This ‘Periodic Notice’ from early March, for trains capable of ‘unattended operation’ is taken from the Official Journal of the European Union. A Periodic Notice “provides advance information about works, supplies or service contracts that, at the beginning of the budgetary year, the contracting authority intends to award during the next 12 months.”
The RMT has already declared itself in dispute over the issue of driverless trains.
Short description of the contract or purchase(s):
The Contracting Authority is planning a comprehensive programme of line upgrades to deliver increased train service capacity on the Piccadilly, Central, Bakerloo and Waterloo & City lines, together the New Tube for London programme. The upgrade incorporates the whole railway system including the introduction of a new generation of energy efficient, air cooled, high capacity tube trains and the adoption of highly reliable management and control systems to support high levels of automation leading to the capability for GoA4 train operation, noting that the Bakerloo line will probably remain at GoA2.
To support the achievement of these objectives the Contracting Authority is seeking to identify suppliers who can demonstrate the following capabilities:
(i) Design, manufacture, testing, commissioning and entry into passenger service of rolling stock for metro operations.
(ii) Evidence of GoA4 capability and experience.
(iii) Evidence of collaboration with client organisations.
(iv) Experience of integration of rolling stock with ATO/ATP signalling and operational infrastructure.
(v) Experience of in-service product support.
What is GoA4 capability?
The grades of automation available range from a manual protected operation, GoA 1 (usually applied as a fallback operation mode) to the fully automated operation, GoA 4 (Unattended Train Operation, UTO). Intermediate operation modes comprise semi-automated GoA 2 (Semi-automated Operation Mode, STO) or driverless GoA 3 (Driverless Train Operation, DTO).[7] The latter operates without a driver in the cabin, but requires an attendant to face degraded modes of operation as well as guide the passengers in the case of emergencies.
More info
- OJEU advert - http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:74152-2014:TEXT:EN:HTML&tabId=1
- Description of a periodic notice - http://www.winningtenders.eu/faqs/what-type-of-contract-notice-exist/
- Goa4 description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_control
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