New signalling technology for Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines 2018

Thales has tested a new signalling control system on sub-surface trains on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, which enable trains to run closer together. The test aims to provide a more frequent service, reduce waiting times and help boost capacity for the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. The system will go live on the first section of the network as early as 2018.
October 17, 2017 Read time: 2 mins

596 Thales has tested a new signalling control system on sub-surface trains on the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines, which enable trains to run closer together. The test aims to provide a more frequent service, reduce waiting times and help boost capacity for the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines. The system will go live on the first section of the network as early as 2018.

Further testing weekends will commence in the coming months as the system is being progressively installed across more of the network with a capacity increase of up to 33% across all four lines, which makes up 40% of the underground. It will also mean that Night Tube services can be introduced on these lines in the future.

The system is designed with the intention of reducing the number of signalling problems and improve the accuracy of real-time customer information. Services will begin to increase in frequency from 2021 when more of the network is operating the new system, and all four lines will be using the system by 2023.

Testing took place between Hammersmith and Latimer Road and featured three newly-enabled S Stock Trains. It involved using a signalling system to manage the distance between trains. The new S Stock trains are currently having new equipment installed, with 30 already fitted by 513 Bombardier.

The next testing weekend will start in December, with installation work continuing throughout the year.

Related Content

  • July 2, 2015
    Bombardier to build new London Overground trains
    Transport for London (TfL) has awarded Bombardier a contract to build a new fleet of trains which will see 45 new trains come into service from 2018. The new trains will operate on the Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt (via Seven Sisters) and Chingford routes and the routes between Barking and Gospel Oak and between Romford and Upminster. It will also enable London Overground to improve service frequencies on other routes. The trains will have similar features to the fleet that serves other
    Read More
  • December 18, 2014
    Queensland extends emergency vehcile priority system
    Following encouraging results from an initial small-scale trial of an emergency vehicle priority system in Queensland, Australia, the scheme is now being extended. In an emergency every second counts. Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than by the survivability statistics for the time to cardiopulmonary resuscitation of pre-hospital cardiac arrest: at four minutes the survival rate is 22% but by 14 minutes the survival has dropped to 5% - as can be seen from the graph below. There is a similar tre
    Read More
  • October 28, 2016
    New system expedites border crossings
    Enforcing border controls can create long queues for travellers, David Crawford looks at potential solutions. Long delays at border crossings in both North America and Europe have sparked the development of new queue visualisation and management technologies that are cutting hours, even days, off international passenger and freight journeys. At the westernmost end of the 2,019km (1,250 mile) Mexico–US frontier, two parallel crossings between Tijuana, in the former country, and the border city of San Diego,
    Read More
  • December 14, 2012
    Car to car communications a step closer
    Vehicle manufacturers have targeted 2015 for the first cars to roll off European assembly lines fitted with operational V2X technology. They and their partners in the Car 2 Car Communications Consortium are confident of meeting the target, reports Jon Masters. Around three years from now vehicles should be appearing in showrooms boasting the capability of communicating with each other. Manufacturers will have started fitting the first proprietary car-to-car driver-aid safety devices and deployment of ‘vehic
    Read More

Highlighted Content