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a subway train at night

Improving our trains

Every day we use 400 trains that cover about 4200 journeys. This means that each train does around 10 different journeys throughout the day.

Our trains run 69 million miles per year, which is the equivalent of traveling to Mars and back. In order to keep our fleet in service, our engineers complete 5000 maintenance services per year – that’s the equivalent of putting your car into the garage 14 times a day.

Our train doors open and close approximately 500,000 times a day, or 350 times per minute.

What can go wrong?

  • Major service disruption can lead to trains being diverted, and then end up in a different location to what was planned. Any trains requiring servicing then need to be worked back to a suitable maintenance location
  • Rubbish can get trapped under the doors or they can become obstructed which can damage the doors mechanism. If this happens, the train will need to be taken out of service for safety reasons
  • If a train comes to a stand with a fault we aim to fix the fault within 10 minutes, because trains behind also come to a stand and begin to queue up. Our network is very busy and this means that multiple trains can be involved in one incident

 

What we’re doing to help

  • We are looking into using a data-driven decision-making tool to provide real-time decisions for the planning of exams and repairs of trains, during and after disruption. This means more trains should be available and in the right locations following the disruption
  • Door examinations are carried out regularly to ensure that they are operating correctly. New technology is being installed to identify if a door is faulty. Quicker identification of a faulty door will enable staff to rectify the fault or lock out the door, so the train can continue in service
  • We are continually looking at ways to identify failures before they happen, or prevent them by upgrading older parts

What Network Rail are doing

We work in collaboration with Network Rail to minimise disruption to your journey and get you to your destination safely and on time

Learn more