Driverless Trains Are Coming — Decades Before Driverless Cars
In short: Driverless trains are not a future fantasy. London's Victoria line was designed for automatic operation in 1968, and Lille, France opened Europe's first fully driverless metro in 1983 — some sixty years before self-driving cars became a headline race. Yet there is still no clear world leader in train autonomy, which is why CRRC's cab-less train at InnoTrans 2026 in Berlin drew so much attention. Why did trains automate decades before cars? Trains run on fixed rails. There are no lane changes, no jaywalkers stepping off curbs, far fewer variables than an open road. That is why rail automation got an international standard early: the Grades of Automation, or GoA, defined in IEC 62290-1. Grade Meaning Example GoA 1 Manual driving Conventional trains GoA 2 Automatic acceleration and stopping, driver aboard London Victoria line, 1968 GoA 3 Driverless, attendant aboard Some automated people movers GoA 4 Fully unattended, no staff aboard Seoul's Shinbundang Line; Li...