London is implementing driverless trains in the Tube

London is getting ready to welcome new Tube trains for the next 40 years. Last week, London unveiled the new cars to the public for the first time, and when the trains finally hit the tracks starting in the mid-2020s, they’ll bring an appreciable list of improvements to riders. With the new design, you’ll be able to walk the entire length of the train, which frees up lots of space that was wasted just from closing off individual cars in the past. 

Plans for a fleet of “driverless” Tube trains have been unveiled by Transport for London (TfL). The fleet of 250 trains, which are not expected to be in service on the Tube until the mid-2020s, will start out with an operator on board, but will be designed and built to be “capable of fully automatic operation”. The trains are part of what Mayor Boris Johnson has called the “New Tube for London”, the plans for which claim will increase the passenger capacity by thousands. New technology will see the air-cooling feature already in use on the Metropolitan and District lines extended to deep-level lines for the first time, while the new trains’ carriages will be “walk-through”, appearing similar to the current Circle and Hammersmith & City Line trains, with wider doors to let people get on and off the trains quicker.