Johnson 'must act over Tube chaos'

London’s Mayor is being pressed to take urgent action to tackle the mounting delays and disruption on London Underground as passengers suffered fresh problems.

Labour’s Mayoral candidate Ken Livingstone and Labour London Assembly Transport spokesman Val Shawcross told Boris Johnson he had to “get a grip” on the Tube “chaos”.

They said that over the past month there had been “serious disruption” on one or more underground lines every single day because of a combination of over-running repairs, cracks on the lines, signal failures and faulty trains, causing “misery” for millions of commuters.

There were delays in the Monday morning rush hour because of signal failures on the District and Piccadilly Lines and a lack of available trains on the Metropolitan Line.

Transport for London reported a good service on just four Tube lines on Sunday, with nine lines either closed or part-closed, said Mr Livingstone.

“Londoners are fed up with the daily delays on the Tube. It’s about time that the Mayor acted to tackle the failures which are causing misery for millions of commuters.

“On October 22 Boris Johnson said he had ordered Transport for London to, ‘pull their socks up’, and said he was ‘fuming with exasperation’. However, the delays and disruption have continued and Londoners continue to suffer daily delays and chaos to their journeys.

“The Mayor’s refusal to meet representatives of the transport unions and failure to show any leadership in dealing with the industrial action has meant London has suffered three major Tube strikes,” he said.

Val Shawcross said: “The Mayor has taken his eye off the ball on his key responsibility of keeping the Tube running. He is clearly not managing the planned closures and his inaction has caused a crisis in industrial relations on the transport network.”

Meanwhile talks aimed at averting more strikes by Tube workers in a row over job losses are to resume at the conciliation service Acas.