GLASGOW Subway will become the first in the UK to run without any staff on board its trains.
Operator Strathclyde Partnership for Transport (SPT) previously announced the new trains would be driverless, but it now says no other staff will normally be in the carriages either.
Staff will be kept on stations, however, plus ride on the busiest services such as when there is a football match on in the city.
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SPT has ordered 17 new trains from Swiss firm Stadler to replace the current fleet of 13, the first of which is expected to arrive on the Subway’s test track near Ibrox by the end of this year. The fleet is expected to enter service in 2020 following completion of the system’s £288million modernisation programme, which includes new signalling to allow trains to run up to every two minutes instead of every four minutes as now.
The trains will be automatic, like the Docklands Light Railway in London. But unlike the DLR, staff will not be required to operate the doors. The Unite union has already raised fears about what will happen if something goes wrong.
SPT counters that similar operations are already in use in cities such as Paris, Barcelona and Copenhagen.
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