WASHINGTON (7News) — Despite concerns from some, Metro leaders Thursday outlined why they feel a return to automated trains for the first time in 13 years will be both safer and smoother than manual operation.
“It is much safer to run in automatic train operation than what we’re running today,” Metro general manager Randy Clarke told 7News after a board of directors meeting. “Do we run a safe system today? Of course we do. Would that improve our safety? Of course it would.”
Metro plans to run trains automatically again as early as May on the Red Line, and by the end of the year on all other lines.
For more than 13 years, Metro train operators have operated trains manually. If Metro returns to what’s called Automatic Train Operation (ATO), operators would still manually shut doors after making sure no riders were in danger, but trains would start, stop, and doors would open automatically.
“[Metrorail] was built to run on automated, and for 13 plus years give or take we’ve been running in a manual mode that it wasn’t designed for,” Clarke said. “Which means you’re putting tons of pressure and potential risk challenges on a manual operation.”
Clarke and other Metro leaders say ATO eliminates human errors like running red signals and speeding. It is also smoother and uses less electricity and causes less wear and tear on trains. They say a number of incidents in recent years – one example being a derailment in Silver Spring in 2020 when a train operator ran a red signal – would never have happened with ATO.
“We have experienced a majority of our incidents that would have been preventable had ATO been in operation -- incidents like stop signal violations, speeding issues, station overruns,” Metro chief safety officer Theresa Impastato told Metro’s board of directors Thursday.
But the reason Metro stopped using ATO was a tragic one – a 2009 crash on the Red Line near Fort Totten in which nine people were killed. Although the NTSB did not find ATO to be the cause of the crash, a poorly maintained track circuit ATO relied on was the cause.
Clarke says such track circuits have been replaced and modernized, and in addition if Metro returns to ATO there is something called a “loss of shunt” detection system that will serve as a backup to make sure there is never a repeat of 2009. In 2009 one of the trains involved in the crash appeared to disappear from the tracks because of the faulty circuit.
Metro’s board heard from a panel of experts from as far away as the United Kingdom Thursday who all said returning to ATO was a positive move for Metro.
But a commissioner with the Washington Metrorail Safety Commission – which was set up by Congress to oversee Metrorail on safety – gave a word of caution at a meeting Tuesday.
“I hope Metro understands how complicated a return to automatic train operation is going to be,” said WMSC commissioner Robert Lauby. “It’s not just a matter of flipping a switch and turning the system back on.”
Metro officials were asked about that Thursday, and responded that it is something they understand. They say a lot of work has already gone into getting ready to return to ATO.
Clarke said testing of ATO on trains without passengers has already begun on the Red Line.