A report due to be heard by Transport for London’s Safety, Sustainability and Human Resources Panel next week has revealed that further “infrastructure mitigations” may be introduced on certain sections of London Tramlink in a bid to further improve safety on the network. It has also been confirmed that passenger numbers have returned to pre-accident levels.
The report states “Work is proceeding with a comprehensive programme of measures to further reinforce safety and confidence on the system.” This will see “infrastructure mitigations” where TfL think it is useful to provide additional cues to driver on speed limits. These include chevron signs being installed at four sites with significant bends, additional lineside digital signage installed to provide additional speed warnings to drivers, options to transfer technology used on buses (such as iBus) to monitor speeds and locations of trams are under evaluation, an in-cab driver alert system is under consideration and there is to be an upgrade to the CCTV system.
TfL were also involved in a teleconference before Christmas with participants from UK Tram, Union Internationale des Transports Publics, Nottingham Trams, Metrolink, TfGM and Edinburgh Trams to discuss potential measures to prevent future similar incidents. There will be a Tram Summit on 24th January where best practice will be discussed for future infrastructure changes and fleet design.
Passenger numbers on the network have now returned to pre-derailment levels (and better) with only the two weeks surrounding the derailment (at which point there were line closures) seeing significant falls in the figures.