It's true, they're not. It's the implementation from a trial carried out on Terminal 4.
It's now carried out by an Apron Management Service that 'control' anything T1, 2 and 3 side of holding points A10-2 and M10-2. It was ridiculously slow at first but it looks like they're starting to get the hang of it a little bit.
Not too sure what qualifications the new Apron controllers have, but approaching the new transfer points ATC make a point of telling you that your "Control service is terminated"
