HS2 passengers will travel in the first driverless trains on a British cross-country mainline under specifications given to manufacturers by ministers, The Telegraph can disclose.
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The next generation of e-mobility has already entered the UK with the High Speed 1 (HS1) Ltd rail line connecting London to the Channel Tunnel, leveraging the UK's fastest train.
A joint bid from Hitachi and Alstom has won the contract for a long-awaited, $2.6 billion order for the fleet of trains to operate on Britain's new HS2 high speed line. The 54 eight-car electric trainsets, designed to routinely operate at 225 mph, are being described as the “fastest trains in Europe.”
Essentially, the height and distance between the train and the platform are not the same on each station. This is one of the key issues holding back the automation of the tube, according to the TfL document.
While full driverless autonomy is certainly technically possible, and is applied on various routes worldwide, it still accounts for only a tiny percentage of trains running today. New trains are still being designed and built with fully equipped driver cabins.
Political partiesThe UK Independence Party (UKIP) is opposed nationally and locally to the proposed HS2 plans. UKIP has been campaigning against HS2 as it is also part of the EU's Trans-European Transport Network (TEN-T) Policy.
Despite an absence of official numbers, the chairwoman of the Stop HS2 group, Lizzy Williams, estimates at 50m from the track, the noise from the trains will be between 95 and 97 decibels every two minutes if the line runs at capacity. But speed isn't the only determinant of train noise.
The driverless Shinkansen tests have so far taken place on the northernmost section of the Joetsu Shinkansen Line, which is not used by commercial traffic. This 5km-long section runs from Niigata station to the stock depot at Higashi-Niigata.
They're driven by people. Although they are attempting to automate them. Unfortunately, it hasn't worked out yet. Recently, they tried it on the 7 line but ended up causing massive delays to passengers when the trains would fail to position themselves correctly at stations.
German rail operator Deutsche Bahn and industrial group Siemens on Monday unveiled the world's first automated, driverless train in the city of Hamburg, billing it as more punctual and energy efficient than traditional trains.
The high-speed rail will provide the greenest, safest and most efficient form of transport. Although the cost was said to be over 100bn the investment will provide a major boost to business and the economy; the faster rail inks will help reduce the north-south divide and overcome the externalities of car use.