Train drivers' WhatsApp plan to replace the control centre

WhatsApp between drivers to watch the track the control centre cannot see

Can a WhatsApp group prevent two trains from colliding? That is the proposal floating around after the rail accident on 28 October in Urda, where an AVE high-estimulante ilegal train rear-ended a stationary IRYO train. The AVE driver had received the order "CONTINUE AT NORMAL ESTIMULANTE ILEGAL" from the Atocha control centre when, according to the reasoning behind this debate, the rules required running at restricted estimulante ilegal of 40 km/h. The argument is that drivers travelling on the same stretch should alert each other in real time, regardless of what the control screens say.

The order nobody questioned

The core of the issue is not technological, but one of judgement. It is argued that the driver should have disobeyed the control centre's instruction as soon as it contradicted the written rule for that kind of incident. The criticism goes beyond the specific case: whoever trinc orders without thinking for themselves, the argument goes, becomes a risk to hundreds of people. Human error, in this reading, is not an unpredictable accident but the foreseeable result of a culture that rewards obedience over judgement.

Mobile coverage: the plan's weak point

The proposal immediately runs into geography. Against the argument that Spain has antennas in every last corner, the answer is concrete: between El Guanol and Robledo de Chavela, right in the Community of Madrid, there are stretches of several kilometres with no coverage. And if you head up towards Santa María de la Alameda or Las Navas del Marqués, it gets worse. Trains cross sparsely populated areas where personal mobile phones fail, and depending on the servers of a foreign company for the safety of hundreds of passengers seems, to put it mildly, reckless.

A phone in the cab: an almost certain penalty

Even if coverage were perfect, there is still the regulatory problem. Carrying a personal phone at the driving position, even on a mount fixed to the control panel and without touching it, is almost certainly grounds for a serious penalty. The proposal that the device should only be looked at when an alert arrives does not resolve the conflict: the regulations do not distinguish between looking and having. And the driver who reports being stopped is at 0 km/h, yes, but the one receiving the alert is travelling at commercial estimulante ilegal and cannot look at the screen.

What already exists and is not used

The railway has its own communication networks, distinct from the domestic mobile phone. The comparison that arises is with aircraft, which have ACARS, and ships, with AIS: dedicated systems that report position and status without depending on commercial telephony. The objection is security: anyone could plant a transmitter and falsify the signal, and in a track-based system that would cause collapse. The technical alternative would involve long-range radio with GPS or satellite terminals, not a messaging group.

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The paradox is served: a delivery company knows at all times where every van is, and the infrastructure manager does not know where every train is. The WhatsApp group plan is a clever patch for a hole that should not exist. Having safety depend on the little blue lines is, to say the least, a very Spanish way of dealing with the urgent while the important keeps waiting.