Tube signal failures rocket

Signal failures on the Tube have shown a huge jump in just four months.

Figures published today show a 43 per cent rise - one of the biggest increases ever in such a short time. They will infuriate both passengers and Mayor Ken Livingstone.

Earlier this week he gave the private sector maintenance chiefs six months to improve or he will step up pressure on the Government to renegotiate their lucrative contracts.

The official figures for this type of failure alone show why hundreds of thousands of commuters are now suffering delays on almost a daily basis.

Between 9 January and 6 February there were were 154 breakdowns caused by signal failures across the London Underground network. There were also 219 breakdowns caused by faulty signals from 3 April to 1 May.

The worst increase was on the District line, where failures doubled - from 29 to

61 - between January and April. On the Central line the rise was from 13 to 23, while failures on the Metropolitan line more than doubled from 11 to 28 over the same period.

All three lines are the responsibility of the Metronet consortium, whose chairman John Weight was axed in April after the company's "totally unacceptable" performance.

Roger Evans, Tory chairman of the London Assembly's transport committee, who revealed the figures, described them as "a disgrace".

He demanded a full explanation from the private consortia in charge of maintenance and improvement of the network.

He said: "Each and every signal failure causes massive inconvenience for tens of thousands of passengers and is completely unacceptable."

He said those in charge "have some serious explaining to do. Last year they managed significantly to reduce the failures - now they have shot back up again."

Brian Cooke, chairman of passenger watchdog the London Transport Users Committee, said: "This is further evidence that the infrastructure companies, particularly Metronet, are not getting to grips with the problems."

Andrew Lezala - the new Metronet chief who has replaced Weight - has already been called to appear before Mr Cooke's committee next week to explain the consortium's poor record.

A London Underground spokeswoman said: "We still have serious areas of concern about the performance of both Metronet and Tube Lines - including signal reliability, which should be improving."

She admitted the number of signal failures during April was 14 per cent higher than the average for last year but said that since then there has been a reduction in the overall number of such failures.

A Metronet spokesman said that, on a six-monthly average, "signalling failures actually fell by four per cent." Metronet, he added, is now "fixing faults faster, concentrating on locations where the public is most affected."

  • Tube commuters suffered more delays today as emergency engineering work at King's Cross hit the whole of the Victoria line, used by more than 500,000 passengers a day. Disruption lasted throughout the morning peak period.

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