I remember 15 years ago some heavy rain broke some line side trees so they fell on the tracks over the Dundas St. hump and on the light rails which form part of the depot access route to Southbank Depot.  The trees weren't discovered until the first trams carred out.  Route 112 trams from Preston carred out via High St., shunted at Albert St., turned right into Victoria Pde. and began West Preston services.  There were no table cards to follow, just do what they could.  Some route 86 trams were also instructed to operate route 96 services between City and East Brunswick.  Well management with the available rollingstock, at least something moves.  I don't think any surface transport should rely that much on artificial intelligence.  Even automatic metro trains have restricted manual modes as back up.

I don't think any surface transport should rely that much on artificial intelligence.  Even automatic metro trains have restricted manual modes as back up.

Sydney Metro has had several service interruptions due to fire alarms at the control centre. In the absence of control room supervision, the trains only run as far as the next station and then stop.

Then when they get the all-clear to return, the line controllers spend the next hour or so trying to recover the service and get things running back in the correct automated pattern.

While staff are trained to manually operate the trains, with no control room. no one would be able to give them the authority to intervene! And even then all they are allowed to do is manually drive the train to the next station and offload the passengers. They are not trained or approved to actually manually operate a passenger service.