Lodnon Loop- the Tube's future, the system (behind the scenes work)

To understand more about London Tube issues, there are some good infomation on London Loop magazine.

The Tube's future: TFL's investment programme

TFL is improving the transport network, the key points including:

• Line-upgrades: for every Tube line, providing almost 30 per cent more capacity; new signalling systems

To avoid the disruption to Londoners, most work are at weekends or overnight. Some work finished on the Waterloo & City line since 2006, there are about 25 per cent more capacity increased. Work on the Jubilee and Victoria lines ia already well underway with the Circle, District, Hammersmith & city, Metropolitan and Northern lines to follow.

• Step-Free stations: making stations more accessible and secure

For wheelchair users or heavy luggage passengers, a quarter of Tube stations will have step-free access. It supposed to take 18 months due to complex engineering techniques to install lifts, the detailed design work and construction plan.

• Major station refurbishment: the system delivering better information, extra space, additional escalator capacity, safety features, CCTV and Help points and better access

Rebuilding key stations such as Victoria and Tottenham Court Road, bigger and less crowded.

Behind-the-scenes: how the TFL system control unexpected failure

• The movement of trains on London Underground is controlled by a fail-safe system of signals. The service controller's team has several service recovery strategies and when an incident happens, trains usually have to be reversed at short notice.
• PTI: Possitive Train Identification On the Underground most trains have a PTI system, which sends information to the do matrix on the platforms.
• In the control room, the staff can advise the Network Operations Centre and ensure that the information is passed onto the media.
• The technology TFL use is state-of-the-art. every call is logged on bespoke systems and sent to mapping software, which allows incidents management in real time, check historical data and identify incident hotspots. The technology used on the Central line is one of the most advanced thanks to its upgrade in the 1990s.