Docklands Light Railway

The Docklands Light Railway (DLR) has been operating in East London since 1987. It provides a direct connection between London’s two major financial districts, Canary Wharf and the City of London.

In 2019, Transport for London (TfL) awarded a contract to CAF (Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles, S.A.) to design and manufacture a new fleet of five-car trains for the DLR network. These new trains will replace some of the existing rolling stock and add additional capacity to the DLR network.

DCA was selected by CAF as their Human Factors partner for the project. This has involved supporting them throughout the design phase, and involved a range of activities including early assessment of CAD layouts, design reviews in Virtual Reality (VR), and assessments of physical mock ups. A detailed report was produced to demonstrate compliance with the relevant regulations and applicable Human Factors and inclusive design standards.

This project provided some very interesting challenges. As normal operations are automated on the DLR network, there is no driver or cab. Passenger Service Agents (PSAs) have the option of controlling the train from an Emergency Driving Position (EDP) at either end of the train. This relatively unique control setup is less defined in regulations and standards and required an innovative approach to assess its suitability.