If you were travelling on Greater Manchester’s Metrolink services Saturday you won’t have had a happy time
For the second time in just over two months, a problem with communication lines between the control centre and drivers saw services twice suspended and between times erratic with passengers waiting on platforms not knowing whether their tram was going to turn up.
Just a week into the reign of the new operator KeolisAmey Metrolink, Danny Vaughan, TfGM’s Head of Metrolink, made the following statement:
“The technical failure which affected the network was due to a communications network failure which, together with a sequence of other events, meant the Metrolink network needed to be shut down.”
“I’d like to apologise to passengers for the disruption they experienced yesterday and thank them, again, for their patience during a very frustrating experience.
“Additional investigations will be carried out on the network. These will be carried out overnight, so will not impact on passenger services.”
Metrolink have stressed to us that despite the communication with drivers via the radio network, at no time was the safety of passengers compromised.
A spokesperson added that while services on the network were still running, albeit at a reduced frequency, due to the nature of the issue, a decision was made to bring the entire network to a close to allow engineers to carry out further investigatory work.
