Metro drivers: Automation of Helsinki trains will not improve safety

"With automation, an entire profession will disappear from Finland"

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Metro train drivers Irina Nortamo and Oivi Laine find it odd that there are plans to convert the Helsinki Metro into an automated driverless system by the year 2011.
      The drivers claim that despite the advance expectations the automation will not improve safety. Laine also claims that out of fear of dismissals the drivers are afraid to express their resistance.
      "With the automation, an entire profession will disappear from Finland", Nortamo points out.
      The automation would leave 80 Metro drivers jobless. The Chairman of the City Board of Helsinki, Jan Vapaavuori (National Coalition), together with Matti Lahdenranta, Managing Director of the Helsinki City Transport (HKL), has given an assurance that nobody will get dismissed, but that staff will be reassigned to other duties either at HKL or the City of Helsinki.
     
On Monday last week, the City Board decided to recommend the automation of the Metro. The City Council will discuss the issue this Wednesday.
      The Metro, which originates from the 1970s, requires some updating if it is to be expanded. According to Vapaavuori, the automation of the entire system is the best of the available options, in terms of both safety and efficiency. The automation comes with a price tag of EUR 70 million.
      Among other things, the new unmanned system will introduce detectors that will stop the train should there be someone on the track. "Without reaction time delay, and braking the train optimally", Lahdenranta adds.
     
According to Nortamo, a driverless Metro does not come without risks. "There are situations, say, where a mother boards the train while the child is still on the platform behind the closing door. A driver sees what has happened and reopens the door. I wonder what an automatic train would do?" she asks.
      The detectors and motion sensors may also inconvenience travelling: "If the unmanned train stops every time when a rabbit leaps across the track."
      Another cause for worry is mischief. "Drunks may start stopping trains for fun, once they find out about the detectors."
      Extreme weather conditions provide their own challenge. According to Laine, the brakes may play tricks in the winter months, and frozen doors may require some muscle to be opened. "How does the sensitive technology deal with the Finnish winter?" Laine ponders.
     
The drivers do not believe all passengers would second the automation either. Some may feel insecure in a driverless train.
      Lahdenranta reckons the number of the Metro guards will stay the same. Of the suspended drivers, 30 or so would be employed as station staff, who would also travel on the trains. The new job description does not appeal to all drivers.
      "Many of us have started looking for other work already", Nortamo explains.
     
Though the unmanned Metro would run fully automatically, the staff with train driving skills would not cease to exist. Even the guards would be taught how to drive a Metro train.
      This is in case the system and the backup system both fail, even if the chances of that happening are quite miniscule in the view of Lahdenranta.
      Laine and Nortamo admit that the automation plans of the Helsinki Metro hurt their professional pride.
      "Is our work considered so worthless that we can be replaced by an automat and some sensors?" they ask.


Previously in HS International Edition:
  Debate over plans for unmanned trains in Helsinki Metro system (19.5.2005)

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