Docklands Light Railway - Rolling Stock Enhancements

Background

DLR trains have changed significantly over the past 20 years and fleet size continues to grow in order to meet passenger demand.

In 1987, DLR ran with a fleet of 11 vehicles and 10 more vehicles entered service in May 1990. Seventy new and improved rail cars were then introduced in 1991 and sold the original fleet of 21 vehicles. The new vehicles served the Bank (1991), Beckton (1994) and Lewisham extensions (1999). In 2002, DLR bought 24 new rail cars in preparation for the opening of the London City Airport extension.

Today the DLR has 94 vehicles in total. A programme to refurbish all 94 vehicles was completed in March 2007 and 24 SS rail cars have recently been ordered in preparation for further extensions and enhancements to the railway.

Click on one of the links below to read more about the Rolling Stock Enhancement:

Vehicle Refurbishment
New Rail Cars
Other improvements to Rolling Stock
Improving the operation of Rolling Stock

Vehicle Refurbishment

The completed project to refurbish DLR’s existing fleet of 94 rail cars saw vehicles being taken out of service and undergoing comprehensive mid-life maintenance. Visibile improvements include a redesigned interior to accommodate more passengers, improved passenger information displays and a new corporate external livery.

The first refurbished vehicle re-entered service in mid-2004 and the programme completed in March 2007.

External Refurbishment

Internal Refurbishment

New Rail Cars

New Rail Car

An order of 55 rail cars has been placed. Following testing, all cars will be operational by 2009. Many will be in use before this time.

The requirement for additional stock has been necessitated by:

Progression of schemes to upgrade the route between Bank and Lewisham to accommodate three-car trains.
The extension of the DLR between King George V and Woolwich Arsenal.
The future Stratford International extension.
High projected passenger demand during the 2012 Games and beyond.

Other improvements to Rolling Stock

On-train CCTV

A project to install cameras and digital recorders on trains was recently completed. These will have the innovative facility of also transmitting live pictures back to the control centre. All cameras are recorded on the train at a slow frame rate, but when a passenger alarm on a train is pressed, the recording of the appropriate cameras changes to a high frame rate and an alarm in the control centre alerts the operator and displays that train's pictures. A unique feature is the ability to store the high resolution recording starting a short period before the alarm is pressed. This system will compliment the station CCTV project (see below). On-train CCTV combined with the improvements to station CCTV will allow passengers to be seamlessly tracked from the point where they enter the DLR system through to where they leave it.

Station CCTV (now complete)

This project introduced more cameras onto the platforms and concourse areas at all stations as part of a security initiative to improve CCTV coverage. All stations are linked to the central control room via an optical fibre network so that multiple cameras can be viewed by the operators. Latest technology cameras have been used to optimise operation under varying lighting levels and digital recorders have been installed at each station and are able to provide evidential quality recordings for use by the police.

Improving the Operation of Rolling Stock

The railway utilises a fully automatic train control (ATC) system, which is monitored by the permanently staffed Control Centre located at Poplar. Each train however is staffed by a highly qualified Passenger Service Agent (PSA).

The Control Room

Passenger Service Agents

Control Room Upgrades

The control room environment must be designed to enable operators to deal with highly pressured periods of activity in the most efficient and safe manner. There are many computerised systems that must be dealt with simultaneously. As the railway expands with new extensions and enhancements, there is a need to rationalise and prioritise system outputs to keep the operator's workload manageable. This forthcoming project will identify any areas that need addressing and additional equipment required. The next step will be to implement improvements.

Radio Optimisation

The original radio system by which PSAs communicated with the central control room had small areas of poor reception. The problem was being caused by signal overlap and the increasing level of building development adjacent to the railway. To improve the situation, the radio system has been redesigned with state-of-the-art base stations and fibre optics that combine digital and analogue technology. The result is a robust and flexible integrated system that provides seamless coverage across the entire DLR network, both above and below ground. Its self-monitoring nature ensures high reliability and supports automatic switching to a backup base-station if required. Intuitive yet comprehensive programming software with a user-friendly Graphical User Interface (GUI) lets the operators manage and program over 150 critical parameters. This project is now complete.

Long Line Public Address (LLPA)

Work is underway to upgrade the central computing equipment that controls the station public address announcements. Messages can be obtained from a pre-programmed standard suite, be quickly assembled by the operators in a scratch-pad for later transmission, or be produced directly from a microphone. Announcements can be sent simultaneously to all stations, groups of stations or individual stations. A dedicated workstation in the control room facilitates these and other features, but there is also the capability to switch LLPA control onto other operators' workstations when required.

Asset upgrades and maintenance

DLRL constantly monitors the condition of its assets and has a number of smaller projects ongoing to upgrade and maintain infrastructure – ranging from re-railing to the updating of signs at stations.

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