> In some European cities (Munich?) autonomous trains often have "drivers" who do nothing because that preferred to fighting the union.
Many cities with autonomous trains indeed have drivers. But they don't do nothing, they sit there for emergencies and to set the go signal when leaving the station. In Austria for instance that's not because of unions but because the job of the driver is at this point considered important. For fully autonomous operation you need extra security features on the track which were not employed (fully sealed off track in stations, better emergency corridors, more reliable remote door controls etc.).
Where fully automated trains are in operation there are never any drivers.
> For fully autonomous operation you need extra security features on the track which were not employed (fully sealed off track in stations, better emergency corridors, more reliable remote door controls etc.).
FWIW Lyon's Line D is fully automated (GOA4) and doesn't use enclosed track. It may have changed since but it used to not even have turnstiles, you could walk up to the track without any pause.
The only incident I can remember is a drunk who literally fell on a train from one of the elevated passages over the track.
Union culture can be significant though. From my understanding, in the US I'd expect a union to refuse any form of automation indefinitely; in other countries, they might accept it if the redundant staff are provided training for another job with good employment prospects.
Union culture is as antagonistic in France as in the US (for the same reasons that corporations are antagonistic) and it not only has multiple GOA4 metro systems running right now across the country[0], Paris is actually converting existing lines to full automation.
All of Germany (which has a much more cooperative union culture) has two GOA4 lines both in Nuremberg, meanwhile Copenhagen Metro (in highly unionised Denmark) was created fully automated back in 2002.
I see no evidence that unions have anything to do with it.
[0] quite literally: Lille, Toulouse, Lyon, Rennes, Paris
I'd be surprised if the unions representing the train drivers in France were just all "ok, cool, automate away and fire the drivers when you're done". Did they require that drivers be employed in other positions, or receive some sort of training for different jobs?
Unions in the US are annoyingly different: most (at least those that I'm even passingly familiar with) seem to have one major goal: keeping the status quo (with regular pay and benefits increases for its members, of course). They generally do not go for "hey, we're going to eliminate your jobs, but we'll compensate you in such a way that you'll continue to be gainfully employed elsewhere".
> I'd be surprised if the unions representing the train drivers in France were just all "ok, cool, automate away and fire the drivers when you're done". Did they require that drivers be employed in other positions, or receive some sort of training for different jobs?
Often that topic does not even come up because companies are not firing people to begin with like they do in the US. They just transition into a new role (for instance they could become light rail drivers in the same network where automation is not yet achievable).
Interesting. Is there that much slack in employment to cover that? I mean, if you automate a transit line, presumably you're displacing dozens of now-former train operators. It would surprise me if they always have productive, useful jobs to move people to in these situations.
