Will the London Tube send its travel information centre jobs to India?

British trade union officials are worried that London's famous underground railway might soon join the outsourcing exodus by moving its travel information call centre to India.

Transport for London (TfL), which is responsible for the underground system, also known as the 'Tube,' denies there are any such plans, but refuses to say whether the issue has come up for discussion at executive level.

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The Tube is a multi-million-pound enterprise responsible for transporting millions of Londoners across the British capital every day. Exporting its call centre to India would result in the loss of an estimated 80 jobs, but also result in significant savings.

Leaders of the Transport and Salaried Staffs Association, who believe that outsourcing is on the cards, say says plans to move the call centre from London would undermine the efficiency and mean the loss of the invaluable local knowledge of its 80 workers.

Worries about a possible move have come to the fore following a decision to switch half of all calls to the mainline National Rail Enquiries service to India.

TSSA negotiator Rick Justham has told the London local media that a similar move would cause chaos on the Tube.

"The value of having call centre workers in London, who use the network daily, is that they won't be confused by enquiries to geographic destinations that defy logic," Justham said in a statement. "For instance, the fact that West Ruislip station on the Central line is north of Ruislip, or North Acton on the Central line is east of West Acton."

He claims there could also be a safety risk from outsourcing. "How well would call centre workers thousands of miles away give information in the case of a crash or an evacuation?"

"We demand that Transport for London gives a cast-iron guarantee that the capital-based travel information centre won't be swept away in the tide of jobs going to India."