Commuters who suffer through the swelter of summer in the London Underground have been full of ideas about how to cool the trains, but none has managed to present a workable plan, the transport company said on Thursday.
The London Underground had offered a £100 000 (R1,1-million) prize for the best plan for keeping cool the three million passengers who ride its trains daily.
But of the 3 500 entries received from 60 countries, none was able to present something feasible and original.
“We were amazed at the number of entries to the Cooling the Tube competition,” said MD Tim O’Toole. “Unfortunately, no one has come up with a practical workable solution beyond anything we have already examined or were working on.”
The problem of keeping hot-headed passengers cool in the world’s oldest subway rail network — its first tracks opened in 1863 — has plagued directors of the London system.
O’Toole said the contest showed the difficulties of the task set before his staff, which must work with an ageing and notoriously troubled network of trains serving 275 stations and criss-crossing more than 408km of track.
“Cooling the tube is a very complex issue that will not be resolved easily or quickly. We’re investing more than ever before and continue to examine ways of cooling the tube, within the limitations of the infrastructure we inherited,” he said.
But critics denounced the competition, which closed in September 2003, as a means for buying time for inefficient managers at the Underground and London’s city council.
“The huge delay in announcing that there was no winner finally tells Londoners that this so-called competition was nothing more than a gimmicky load of hot air dreamt up by the [London] mayor’s spin doctors,” said Lynne Featherstone, the Liberal Democrat transport spokesperson for London.
Ongoing projects to cool the Underground include improving ventilation in the tunnels and increasing fan capacity by 30%.
New trains due on four central train lines will have an air-cooling system, but the first is not due to be put into service until 2009. — AFP