Tube drivers have voted for a 24-hour strike as part of their dispute over shift patterns, with the industrial action to take place on Thursday, October 5.

In a ballot of Aslef members who work on the London Underground, strike action was supported by 88.4 per cent of votes cast, with 53.1 per cent turnout.

The union claims managers have not delivered on the commitments they made to improve work-life balance as part of the 2015 pay settlement.

Aslef’s London Underground organiser Finn Brennan said: “As part of the settlement of the dispute over the introduction of Night Tube, London Underground agreed to introduce a mechanism to allow drivers to reduce the number of shifts they work, on a pro-rata basis, and ‘new ways of working’ to reduce the percentage of weekend shifts worked by July this year. They have repeatedly refused to make any detailed proposals to do so.

“For more than 18 months management have prevaricated, stalled and delayed. Deadlines have repeatedly been missed and promises broken while our detailed proposals to resolve these issues have been ignored.

“Our members’ patience has finally been exhausted and our executive committee has announced strike action. As always, we are ready to meet at any time to try to find a solution, but it is long past time that London Underground management started to act to resolve this long running dispute.”

Transport for London said it ran a trial with unions Aslef and RMT for a four-day week for staff, the results of which will be collected and analysed.

Nigel Holness, director of network operations at TfL, said: "We are committed to ensuring that our employees are able to maintain a good balance between their work and personal lives and we have been working closely with the unions to explore new ways to achieve this.

"I encourage Aslef to continue working with us constructively rather than moving towards unnecessary strike action."