Driverless trains could be the solution to avoiding more Underground strikes, experts claimed today as the week-long walkout continued to cripple London and Sir Sadiq Khan was accused of being 'completely absent'.Members of the Rail, Maritime and Transport (RMT) union are taking part in a six-day walkout between Sunday and Friday which has paralysed Tube services.Mr Khan's Tory opponents accused him of 'abdicating his fundamental duty' and claimed he had been 'nowhere to be seen' during the transport crisis.No talks are planned to try to resolve the ongoing dispute over pay and hours, with the RMT also claiming that its strikes could target the Elizabeth line next.RMT leader Eddie Dempsey today called on the Mayor of London to hold a summit with the union in a bid to end the misery being inflicted on hard-working Brits. Speaking at the TUC Congress in Brighton, Mr Dempsey told delegates: 'I've got a message for the mayor. Instead of going on social media, instead of the old tired cliches, telling trades unionists to get round the table, you're the Mayor of London, you're the chair of Transport for London.'Stop going on social media, invite us to the meeting, let's have a discussion, because I want to know what is going on in London.'As the strikes rumble on, academics have been making a renewed case for driverless trains on all lines, mirroring the Docklands Light Railway which launched without drivers in 1987. Passengers wait to enter London Liverpool Street station for Elizabeth line services today Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strike People queue for buses in Central London today as the Tube strike causes travel misery Commuters are caught in the rain in London this morning as the Underground strike continues London Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan at a Topshop & Topman show in Trafalgar Square on August 16Commuters suggested striking workers should be sacked and replaced by automated trains. One tweeted: 'Sensible thing would be to sack you and automate the lines.'Another wrote: 'The only sensible thing to do is to automate the Tube and sack the greedy drivers. There would be thousands of people queuing up for their jobs for life.'And a third posted: 'Take the hit and acknowledge TfL will not function for six months. Sack every single TfL worker on strike and make it clear to the rest if they strike they get the same. Employ new workers that cannot be union members.'How is the Tube strike affecting the network? The whole Underground network was suspended today apart from shuttle services operating on these four lines:Central line between White City and West Ruislip/Ealing Broadway only;Metropolitan line between Harrow-on-the-Hill and Amersham/ Chesham/Watford/Uxbridge only;Northern line between High Barnet and East Finchley/Mill Hill East and between Golders Green and Edgware only; andDistrict line between Upminster and Whitechapel only.These lines were fully suspended:BakerlooCircleHammersmith & CityJubileePiccadillyVictoriaWaterloo & City The Conservatives have backed driverless Tubes for years but the idea has faced staunch opposition from the powerful railway unions amid safety concerns.Boris Johnson said back in 2020 when he was prime minister that driverless trains should be a condition of any future funding for Transport for London (TfL).Grant Shapps also told TfL to look into the feasibility of driverless trains in 2022 after the Department for Transport bailed out TfL during the Covid-19 pandemic.But TfL believes such a project would cost billions of pounds to implement – including £20billion on just three of the oldest lines. Mayor Sir Sadiq Khan said last December that work to introduce driverless trains would 'not be progressed any further'.Tony Lodge, research fellow at the Centre for Policy Studies, wrote in the Telegraph: 'When HM The Queen opened the driverless Docklands Light Railway in 1987 it was rightly assumed the technology which underpinned this safe and efficient railway could and should be rolled out across London's Tube network.'But despite various political promises over the years, progress to modernise the Tube and end the union's ability to cause maximum disruption remains stuck.'He added: 'World leading cities like Paris, Tokyo, Barcelona and Dubai have already embraced driverless trains. Why can't London follow suit?'The answer is that it can, but that it needs political will and leadership. This won't be forthcoming from Sadiq Khan and in the meantime Londoners will continue to pay the price.'The Centre for Economics and Business Research estimates the strike will have a direct impact on the London economy of £230million and cost millions more indirectly.Jawad Iqbal, former visiting senior fellow in the Institute of Global Affairs at the London School of Economics, told The Times: 'This reckless industrial action can only hasten public demands for driverless trains.'He added: 'Automation would do wonders for economic productivity and would help bring an end to damaging disputes of this nature. No modern capital city should be held to ransom in this way.'The RMT, a union dinosaur unable to adapt to a changing world, has only itself to blame. Its members will unfortunately pay the price in terms of their jobs in the long run. The public won't mourn their demise.'Historian and journalist Nigel Jones wrote in The Spectator that the DLR operates driverless trains along 24 miles of track and has 'operated continuously without major adverse incidents or disasters ever since'. Young couple Charlotte and Alex told the Daily Mail: 'It's our first time cycling to work. We've taken a half-hour journey from Earl's Court for the first time together because of the Tube strikes' Tim jumped on his bike and cycled 12 miles from Wanstead. He said: 'I try and cycle twice a week anyway so this is actually helping me out and encouraging me to get on my bike' Maria took one hour and 40 minutes to cycle in from Tottenham Hale to Westminster today Lawyer Chelsea, 24, commuted to Hounslow by foot which took her one hour and 15 minutesHe added: 'Despite this success story, London's Mayor Sadiq Khan announced last year that there were no plans to convert the underground system to a driverless service, even though the technology to do so is clearly achievable.'The RMT oppose the driverless trains, ostensibly on safety grounds, but though drivers would disappear, there is no reason why they couldn't be retrained to act as guards and inspectors.'What is preventing such progress is the stubborn Luddite refusal of the unions to accept and adapt to such an inevitable change.'Some of the Underground is already semi-automated under what is known within the industry as 'Grade of Automation 2' (GoA2), which is where a driver is in the cab but the operation is relatively automated.However, there has been much opposition to fully driverless trains from staff – with train drivers' union Aslef saying in 2014 that it would 'go to war' over plans to introduce them.Today, the City Hall Conservatives have accused Sir Sadiq of 'abdicating his fundamental duty to London' during what the group described as the capital's 'worst transport crisis in years'.They claimed he had been 'notably absent from public discourse on the crisis', and that his 'deafening silence comes as the 149th strike to occur under his leadership since taking office in 2016 on a pledge of 'zero strikes'.'Keith Prince, the City Hall Conservatives Transport spokesman, told the Daily Mail: 'Khan has been completely absent in the middle of this crisis whilst the over-stretched staff who remain at TfL this week have fought valiantly to try and keep services running for Londoners.'It's a disgrace that in the middle of this chaos, London's leader is nowhere to be seen. 'The sooner we can automate these trains and prevent the unions holding us all to ransom - thanks to Labour's lack of leadership, particularly - the better.'So far Sir Sadiq has only tweeted once about the strike, writing on X yesterday: 'I share the frustrations of everyone whose journey has been disrupted by the strikes today.'My message remains clear: I urge the RMT to get around the table with TfL so this dispute can be resolved. Please continue to check the TfL Go app before you travel.'The number of people travelling to normally busy business districts of London has fallen by almost a third because of the ongoing strike.Commuters have turned to buses and bikes to get to work or have stayed away from the capital and worked from home.Among the cyclists making a long journey into work today was Maria, who told the Daily Mail it took her one hour and 40 minutes to make her way from Tottenham Hale in North London to Westminster.She said: 'It's been a tiring morning. But I don't have another option, so I have to get on my bike.' Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strike London becomes a city of cyclists again today amid ongoing strikes on the Underground Commuters are caught in the rain in London this morning as the Underground strike continues Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strikeTim had also jumped on his bike and cycled 12 miles from Wanstead in East London. He said: 'It's good for me, I try and cycle twice a week anyway so this is actually helping me out and encouraging me to get on my bike.' Michael McCarthy, 63, had cycled all the way from Chessington in South West London to Westminster.Young couple Charlotte and Alex told the Daily Mail: 'It's our first time cycling to work. We've taken a half-hour journey from Earl's Court for the first time together because of the Tube strikes.'Matt Mason, 52, cycled for one hour and 45 minutes from Maidstone in Kent. He said: 'It's good, it keeps me fit. I like cycling anyways so I'm not bothered by the Tube strikes.'Australian lawyer Chelsea, 24, commuted to Hounslow by foot which took her one hour and 15 minutes. She told the Daily Mail the strikes 'won't get in the way' for her as she would walk instead.But not everyone was happy about the increase in cyclists, with motorcyclist Lee from Peckham telling the Daily Mail that Lime bike riders 'don't know what they're doing and the Tube strikes are causing chaos because they're all going on the roads.'Their bikes are stupid, they don't know what they're doing.'Meanwhile data from Virgin Media O2 showed that footfall across central London at 1pm yesterday was down 16 per cent compared with the same time last Tuesday.The drop was said to be even more pronounced in business districts heavily reliant on the Tube and DLR, which is also being affected by separate strikes this week. Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strike Passengers wait to enter London Liverpool Street station for Elizabeth line services today People queue for buses in Central London today as the Tube strike causes travel misery Passengers inside London Liverpool Street station as the Underground strike continues today Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strikeFootfall in Canary Wharf was down by 31 per cent, London Bridge and the City down 21 per cent and Westminster down 19 per cent, according to the report.Mr Dempsey has called on Sir Sadiq to intervene in the disputes, saying: 'There has been a total collapse of industrial relations on London Underground.Mr Dempsey said that as well as strikes on the Tube and DLR, disputes were looming over the pay and conditions of cleaners as well as the future of ticket offices on the Elizabeth line.TfL says there are no plans to close ticket offices despite claims by the RMT that it has uncovered plans to shut them.Mr Dempsey said: 'The mayor has to intervene. He keeps telling us to return to the negotiating table - well, if he invites us to a meeting, we will attend.'Our members are not asking for a king's ransom. We want progress towards recognition about the impact of shift work.'We are not asking for an immediate drop from a 35-hour week to 32. We have been discussing this since 2018 and we are open to discussions.'The strike paralysed Tube services for a second day on Tuesday, with commuters again facing huge problems travelling to and from the capital.Downing Street has called on the RMT and TfL to get back to the negotiating table to end the strike.The Prime Minister's official spokesman said: 'I think Londoners will rightly be fed up with the disruption from Tube strikes... as parents try and drop their kids off at school, get to hospital appointments, get to work. Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strike People queue for buses in Central London today as the Tube strike causes travel misery Passengers wait to enter London Liverpool Street station for Elizabeth line services today Cyclists make their way to work in London this morning during the ongoing Tube strike People queue for buses in Central London today as the Tube strike causes travel misery'We want to see RMT and TfL get back around the table when it comes to these strikes, work together in good faith to resolve this situation in the interests of passengers.'TfL has offered a 3.4 per cent pay rise, but the union is pushing for a reduction in working hours.With almost no Tube trains running until Friday mid-morning, demand for shared bike services has surged – with those using them dubbed 'Strikelysts'.Lime, which operates electric bikes across the city, said it saw a 58 per cent increase in trips during Monday's morning peak compared with the same period a week earlier.'Journeys were longer in both distance and duration, indicating that many riders relied on Lime for their entire commute rather than just the first or last mile,' a Lime spokesperson said.Forest, another bike-sharing firm which operates 15,000 e-bikes in London, reported a 300 per cent increase in rides during yesterday's morning rush hour between 7am and 8am.On Monday, Forest reported a 100 per cent increase in rides during the same period. But Mondays have typically been quieter commuting days since the pandemic, with many workers continuing to work remotely at the start of the week.Uber Boat by Thames Clippers, a river bus service, said its services were 'busier than usual,' with extra sailings added, including a shuttle between Canary Wharf and London Bridge.The City of London's highways team said on X that it was 'concerned about the number of e-bikes in the City', adding: 'Whilst this increase is largely due to the tube strikes, pls be assured we are liaising closely with Lime to sort this.'