Tube Mobile Plan Hits Severe Delays

By Londonist Last edited 180 months ago
Tube Mobile Plan Hits Severe Delays

2871657821_9062ccf048_m.jpg Plans to enable mobile phone use on the Tube have been shelved, it has been revealed today.

Those of us fed up with being forced to listen to other people’s mobile phone conversations on the train will be relieved to see the blight at the end of the tunnel has hit the buffers. Mounting costs have put the brakes on the project to introduce mobile signals across the network after the tenders submitted were deemed ‘not commercially viable’.

Two years ago, LU Strategy and Service Development Director Richard Parry claimed that there was a ‘growing demand for mobile coverage to be extended to deep-level sections of the Tube’ despite loud mobile phone users being cited in a survey last year as being one of the most annoying things about travelling by train, beaten only by loud music on iPods and people spreading out broadsheets. The very existence of quiet carriages on trains suggests companies are not unaware of the annoyance endured by travellers as the nth person calls to say they will arrive in seven and a half minutes and they want chips for dinner.

Trials were originally planned for Bank and Waterloo stations with a view to rolling it out across London’s Tube system. O2, who provide mobile access in Glasgow’s tube system, say the failure of Metronet in 2007 caused the trials to stall though they are still in talks with TfL. Noise-weary Londoners however, will have some peace from chattering inanity for a while longer.

Now if we could only do something about music being played on mobile phones…

By Beth Torr

Image by Kayodeok via the Londonist Flickrpool.

Last Updated 16 March 2009