Impacts of Unattended Train Operations (UTO) on

productivity and efficiency in metropolitan railways

Introduction

Key Research Questions

Metro subway systems worldwide are choosing increasing levels of automation for new and refurbished lines.
Despite significant investment in this technology, empirical evidence for the financial impacts of UTO in metros
remains scarce. Investment in UTO technology should be assessed in terms of maximising metro productivity
service quality, and efficiency. Are the additional capital costs of the more advanced equipment justified by
benefits to operating costs and/or the capacity and reliability of service?

What is the additional capital cost of technology that enables UTO?

Assuming a constant number of stations and trains in service, what level of staffing is required on a UTO line
compared with a conventional one?
How is the operational cost of a UTO line different to a conventional line (including effects related to staffing)?
How does UTO affect metro service outputs such as capacity and reliability?

The Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC)

Metro automation terminology

Costs

The RTSC is based at the Centre for Transport Studies (CTS) at Imperial College London. We work
with two metro operator benchmarking groups (CoMET and Nova), which share performance data
and good practice information in a confidential environment.

The word driverless reads as a synonym for unattended but is sometimes used for trains with
an attendant but no drivers cab, creating confusion. Grade of Automation (GoA)1 terminology is
more precise and thus preferable.
GoA1: Manually driven but has Automatic Train Protection (ATP).

Capital Investment

London DLR
Newcastle
Toronto

London
Underground
Montreal
New York Lisbon

Oslo
Brussels
Berlin
Paris

Moscow
Istanbul
Nanjing
Guangzhou

Barcelona
Madrid

Mexico City

GoA2: Driven by Automatic Train Operation (ATO), with a driver in a cab performing critical
functions such as closing doors and starting the train in motion.

Delhi

Beijing
Shanghai

Taipei
Hong Kong

GoA4: Capable of fully Unattended Train Operation (UTO).

The additional cost to enable unattended operations varied from 0-30%. In metros with more
advanced technology on their comparator conventional lines (e.g. in Asia), the cost uplift for
unattended operation was lower. For the two metros that could provide data, the return on
investment in GoA4 (compared with GoA2/3) was 10-15%.

How is the train controlled?

Semi-automatic
(SAO)

Fully automatic
(FAO)

+ Automatic Train
Protection (ATP)

Automatic Train
Operation (ATO)
+ human actions
& supervision

Automatic Train
Operation (ATO)
+ fully automatic
systems

GoA1

GoA2

Manual

Singapore

Driver

Sao Paulo Rio de Janeiro

Who is on the train?

Sydney
Buenos Aires

Driver/
Operator
(in a cab)

Attendant
/Steward
(not in a cab)

GoA3

Responses were received for 21 existing and planned lines capable of unattended operations
(UTO), plus 2 lines operated by an attendant who is not based in a cab.

Attended
GoA4

Automated
lines

Some GoA4 lines are operated

exclusively with attendants on
board as though they were
GoA3. Thus GoA4 systems can
either be UTO without onboard staff; or Attended GoA4
with an attendant on board who
is not essential to the movement
of the train.

GoA1

Automatically
(ATO)

Staff member
on all trains?

Operating Costs
Yes

No

GoA4
(UTO)
1International

4. A platform edge safety system either platform doors or an obstacle detection system

Manually

How is the train

driven?

In addition to data collected specifically for this study, we used existing CoMET and Nova
benchmarking data, which benefits from many years of refined definitions and data validation.
A confidentiality agreement enabled participating metros to provide sensitive data, but requires
that research results must be anonymised for publication. Thus metros are referred to throughout
by grade of automation or by continent.

Conventional
lines

GoA4
(UTO)

No staff

Methods and Data

We used questionnaires and semi-structured interviews with the 32 metros of the CoMET and
Nova benchmarking groups to assemble emerging evidence for how automation affects costs,
staffing, service capacity and reliability. Because of the small number of automated lines operated
by CoMET and Nova members, three additional metros participated in the study: Copenhagen
Metro, Milan Metro (Line 5), and Vancouver SkyTrain.

2. Remote monitoring and reset of train systems

3. Two-way communications system between operations control centre and train

Bangkok

Santiago

1. Ability to control train movements (and train sub-systems) remotely

GoA3: Driven by ATO, but replaces a driver in a cab with an attendant in the passenger area.
This attendant is performing a critical function such as supervising safe door closure.

Kuala Lumpur
Our thanks to the
CoMET and Nova
member metros
(shown on the map),
and the metros of
Milan, Copenhagen
and Vancouver, for
their participation in
this study.

The capital cost of GoA4 comes from ensuring the system has these four essential features:

Staff member
performs critical
function?

Yes

No

Attended
GoA4

Where is staff
member located?

Separate
cab

Passenger
car

GoA3

GoA2

It is not possible to directly translate lower typical staffing levels on UTO lines to lower operational
costs, because multi-skilled staff may be paid more than drivers or station staff on conventional
lines.
The key feature of UTO is that it de-links number of trains from number of drivers, so staff costs
do not limit service frequency increase. Traction energy becomes the key operational cost
constraint. Absence of drivers enables UTO lines to operate shorter trains more frequently,
making the service more attractive without increasing cost.

Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) standard IEC-62290

Judith M. Cohen*, Alexander S. Barron, Richard J. Anderson, and Daniel J. Graham.

Poster presented at the 94th Transportation Research Board of the National Academies Annual Meeting, 2015, Washington DC, USA,

Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC),

Centre for Transport Studies (CTS), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, SW7 2AZ

Impacts of Unattended Train Operations (UTO) on

productivity and efficiency in metropolitan railways
Staffing models

Capacity: Service regularity and dwell time consistency

Automated lines have four distinct staffing models.

Initial indications (from very limited data) are that GoA4 operations may be associated with more
consistent station stop times and headways between trains, as operator variability is eliminated.

Roaming Multiskilled Staff

Fully attended trains

and stations

Roaming Multiskilled Staff

S
1

S
1

S
1

S
1

2.6

Staff per asset

2.5
2
1.5

2.4
2.0 2.0
1.9

1.6 1.6 1.6 1.5

1.4 1.4 1.4

Fully attended trains and stations

Fully attended trains, most stations unattended
Fixed station staff and roaming multiskilled staff
Roaming multiskilled staff only
Empty bars indicate proposals for future lines

1.2 1.1 1.1

1.0 1.0 1.0

0.8
0.6 0.5 0.5
0.4

0.5

0.4

0.28

0.27

Data based on
surveys of peak hour
service at the busiest
station on the line

0.2
0.12

0.11
0.1
19

24

25

32

Stop time

Flexibility to add service (no drivers needed)

0.3

No issues with driver unavailability

0.2

Newer systems less likely to fail

0.1

Headway regularity

GoA2

GoA4 20 Number of data points

Improvements in regularity and consistency of station stops improves reliability and enables high
frequency services.

A defining advantage of GoA4 is that availability and location of trains is decoupled from
availability and location of staff.
GoA1/2
Trains
Staff

Capacity: Service frequency

Staff per asset

normalises total
operational staff
according to the number
of stations and trains in
service i.e. the number
of assets that might
require staffing.

Trains

GoA3

Staff

Trains

GoA4

Staff

Very high frequencies are possible on conventional and automated systems communicationsbased train control (CBTC) signalling systems are essentially the same for GoA2, GoA3 and GoA4.
However, UTO enables higher frequency by reducing turnaround times and improving regularity.
40 of 162 lines operate or plan a service >30tph, of which 15 are or will be automated lines.
The top 10% of lines operate a service >36tph; 10 of these 17 are or will be automated.

Train frequencies of automated lines compared with all line

frequency data available from CoMET and Nova metros

Conclusions

42 42

Our findings indicate that UTO is a means to a more flexible and reliable
operating model that can increase metro productivity and efficiency.

40

Operational staff (in trains, stations and control centre) per

asset in service (stations + trains) during peak hour
3.0
2.5

Key

Staff per Asset

Maximum

2.0

3rd quartile
Mean
Median
1st quartile
Minimum

1.5
1.0

Trains per Hour (tph)

36

Metros with unattended

trains and stations have a
mean staff per asset of 0.6,
compared with 1.3 if either
trains or stations are fully
staffed, and 1.7 if both are
attended. Thus UTO can
enable 30-70% lower
staffing level.

Consistent stop times and drive speeds

GoA1

The number of operational staff compared with the total number of trains and stations has a
direct impact on operating cost.

0.3

0.5

0.36

0.33

Key
S Station staff (customer service, staff in station control room)
Roaming multi-skilled staff moving between trains and stations in a particular area
1 Attended train

Operational staff (in trains, stations and control centre) per

asset in service (stations + trains) during peak hour

0.4

Automated lines all had reliability within the top

third of CoMET and Nova networks due to:

GoA4
Attended GoA4
GoA3
Whole network

As
GoA4-att
As
As
As
As
GoA4-att
As
As
GoA3
GoA4
GoA4
Am
GoA4
As
As
Eu
As
Eu
Am
Am
Eu
Am
Am
Eu
Eu
Eu
Eu
Eu
Am
Eu
Eu
Am
Eu

Fully attended trains, most

stations unattended

0.6

Average of the coefficients of variation of individual lines

Coefficient of Variation
(Standard deviation divided by the mean)

Fixed station staff and

roaming multiskilled staff

Million train-km between incidents of >5 minutes duration (MDBF):

Whole networks and automated lines (2012)

train-km (millions)

Roaming multiskilled
staff only

Reliability

30

34
33

Capital costs of lines that can be operated unattended are higher, but
internal rate of return has been estimated by two metros at 10-15%.

3030
25
23
20 20

20

19
13

10

0.5

0.0
Attended trains Attended trains,
Attended
and stations
unattended
stations,
stations
unattended trains

Unattended
stations and
trains

UTO can reduce staff numbers by 30-70%, with the amount of wage
cost reduction depending on whether staff on UTO lines are paid
more.
Automated lines are capable of operating at the highest service
frequencies of up to 42 trains per hour.
The available data suggest that automated lines are more reliable.

0
Conventional lines

30

GoA4

Future automated lines

Judith M. Cohen*, Alexander S. Barron, Richard J. Anderson, and Daniel J. Graham.

Poster presented at the 94th Transportation Research Board of the National Academies Annual Meeting, 2015, Washington DC, USA,

Railway and Transport Strategy Centre (RTSC),

Centre for Transport Studies (CTS), Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College London, London, United Kingdom, SW7 2AZ