The head of the Toronto Transit Commission is calling for an end to human drivers on the city's subway trains.

City councillor Howard Moscoe says moving to a computer-controlled system would boost rush-hour capacity by 40 per cent by allowing faster service.

Toronto subway riders would be on their own if a proposal to replace drivers with computers were adopted by the transit commission
CBC

Taking the human factor out of the driver's cab would, however, cost about $750 million, the same as about three kilometres of new tunnel and three new stations on the existing lines.

"We will have the equivalent of a new Yonge Street subway in terms of capacity for the cost of automating this system," says Moscoe, who plans to bring up the idea at Friday's TTC board meeting.

In addition, automation would make operating the subway 24 hours a day possible with the use of computers and short-switching tracks.

"We can't do this at the moment [with the driver-based system] because we need a window of opportunity to do track repairs," he told CBC News.

Installing the system would take at least three years.

Union officials are wary of the suggestion, but Moscoe claims no jobs would be lost because the drivers could be turned into "station masters" at each stop along the line.

The union wonders where the money for such a step might come from in a cash-strapped city.