Tech Boards the Train

Mirror TECH BOARDS THE TRAIN

From mobile to surveillance, Indian Railways is fact moving on the digitization journey

s a passenger’s transportation, Indian with a total route length of 67, 368 (approximately) Railways has played a crucial role in kilometers. the commuting lives of the middle and It is vital that operators embrace the modern Alower strata of the population. Serving world and make other companies and developers to as the most economical mode of transportation maintain train eets to make the journeys hazzlefree. among the others in the country, it has seen many Technology in general has acted as an improved op- major changes in the recent years of ‘technnovation’. erational to a great extent in recent times. Linking latest technologies with IRCTC has allowed the operators and authorities to manage new tech Passenger security and Derailments to provide smart solutions, make more informed Indian Railways is looking for new and better decisions and drive e ciency. Indian railways is the technologies to prevent train derailments and ac- country’s economy and an integral part of commuting cidents caused due to rail fractures. In order to detect

66 PCQUEST SEPTEMBER 2018 pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] rail fractures, the Research Design and Standard Organization (RDSO), under Railway Ministry, is currently working on three technologies. USER-FRIENDLY RAILWAY APPS At present, all the three technologies are being tested and are likely to become functional by the end of this IRCTC Connect Official year. Once the technologies become This official Indian railways app caters the need of- functional, control room and loco pilots Online ticketing / Tourism. / Status of the train / would be noti ed about fractures in Stations information / Journey alerts / Station railway tracks before the train reaches Information the hazardous spot. One out of the three projects is the Indian Railway PNR & IRCTC Info advanced ultrasonic machine which is A third party app is user friendly being tested in Allahabad and Morada- Searching trains bad divisions. PNR status enquiry The second one is a detection moni- Seat availability tor that will be placed under the engine Fare Enquiry of every train with a sensing technol- Live train status ogy. If a defect is detected by the moni- tor then a report will be sent directly to NTES (National Train Enquiry System) control room and the loco pilot will be This official Indian railway app can be used to directed to apply emergency brakes. Get train schedule The third technology involves the PNR status laying of optical bre along the railway Live train and station reports tracks which will measure the sound frequency on railway tracks and follow- eRail.in App ing this, the device will automatically PNR status send report to the server and control Train and Ticket information room. The sound frequency will be Fare Enquiry identi ed by a sound recognition machine, present at the control room RailYatri App system. In addition to this, it will also GPS based railway app for send the report to electronic interlock- Live train status ing system control room. In case a PNR Status fracture is detected, the loco pilot will Train and Station Information be alerted 500 m before the aected Food ordering spot in order to apply brakes and stop the train. Indian rail Train info App CCTV software’s to prevent thefts PNR status Indian Railways division is experi- Train schedule menting with a new upgraded software Station info to prevent theft. Railways is not only Seat availability equipping Rajdhani Express trains with CCTV cameras, but is also providing Railgadi App body cameras to RPF (Railway Pro- Train notifications tection Force) ocials on trains and Seat availability platforms. Live train updates / Fare Enquiry “There have been cases of theft from Rajdhani trains, so we are equipping coaches of these premium trains pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2018 PCQUEST 67 Mirror

JOINT VENTURE OF INDIAN RAILWAYS , HUMAN RESOURCE AND SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY A memorandum of understanding (MoU) on Technology Mission for Indian Railways (TMIR) by the ministries of railways, human resource development (HRD), and science and technology. The agree- ment will “facilitate collaboration and cooperation” between the ministries. The Indian Railways would get the world class technologies, academic and research institutions would get involved in numerous applied research projects which would help them in reorienting research towards national objectives. “This MoU will facilitate the co-financing of Technology Mission for Indian Railways by investment sharing for identified railway projects for applied research,” he said. The funding component of the railways ministry is 30 per cent, the HRD ministry is 25 per cent and the department of science and technology is 25 percent. This Technology Mission will give a boost to the Indian Railways sector and would create more research in the fields of for both passanger and environment friendly. The projects will be implemented through a Mission Imple- mentation and Coordination Committee having members from the three ministries, academia and the industry. The technology mission has been launched to focous national attention and drive modern technologies of monitoring, control, design for railway safety. The project will formulate and implement projects aimed towards the challenges that the Indian raolways has been facing so far. The easier way is to have a government-to-government partnership on the pattern of India-Japan rail cooperation for the dedicated freight corridor or the high speed train project. The funding requirement is also not much and a small beginning, of placing an order of 1,000 coaches, can be made initially. This strategy will deliver coach interiors with international benchmarking with a strong potential for Make in India eventually.

GREENCo PARTICIPATION WITH INDIAN RAIL- WAYS The GreenCo system focuses on major environmental areas including energy, efficiency, renewable energy ,water conservation, waste management, resource conservation, green supply chain, product stewardship and life cycle assessment. The participation in GreenCo rating process has helped Indian Railways manufacturing units and workshops in achieving approximately Rs 10 crores per year of saving. GreenCo Rating is being implemented in 42 facilities including production units and workshops of Indian Railways. Over 400 companies across several sectors from the manufacturing and services verticals are also in the process of this certification.

GOOGLE RAILTel Launched in January 2016 Google RailTel in partnership with RailTel, a subsidiary of Indian Rail- ways, has reached 140 stations across India and offers speeds ranging from 20-40Mbps. The aim is to reach as many as 400 stations by the end of the year 2018. The main goal of the RailTel initiative is to bridge the digital divide and provide the masses with reliable and fast internet so that they can remain connected, do their work, watch videos and so whilst waiting for their trains. Under this initiative, RailTel provides the high speed network via fiber lines while Google proved tech support and sets up the wireless infrastructure. Google’s reasoning behind entering into a partnership with Indian Railways to bring high-speed internet facilitiesin railway stations.

68 PCQUEST SEPTEMBER 2018 pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] with CCTC cameras. As of now 5 coaches already have Digitalization these CCTV cameras and a requirement for CCTVs for Digitalization provides a huge opportunity to re- 100 more coaches has already been identi ed,” ac- duce costs by streamlining processes and improving cording to a Western Railways ocial. eciency and reliability. According to the ocial, till the time that all Currently the railways earns more from e- tickets coaches get CCTV cameras, RPF will have body than from manual ticketing. A transformation has cameras for real-time monitoring of the train and taken place in online ticketing system which is easily stations. RPF personnel on Shatabdi Express trains of available in mobile now. It hasprovided information the Western Railways are also being given these new- on train movements, while predictive maintenance is age body cameras. These cameras have an upgraded soon to become a reality. Digitalization is allowing rail- software. ways to analyze overall performance and sub-systems to identify weaknesses which need to be addressed. e- patrolling mobile application linking with the The technology is also encouraging new companies, main control room often in the form of start-ups, to enter the rail industry In order to bring transparency in dealings with and inject fresh ideas and new ways of working. train passengers, on-duty police ocers on Rajdhani Express trains had been provided with body cameras Artiﬁcial Intelligence that stored 32 GB footage in inbuilt storage devices Artificial intelligence which is nowadays need and the footage was reviewed only in critical situa- in every days sector for a better transformation tions. The software, which is an e-patrolling mobile project management, support decision making, and application will be set up on the patrol sta’s phones help to allocate the best person for a particular job and it will be paired with the body camera. The app that cannot come soon enough for cities desper- will be fed with details such as the police ocer’s ately seeking ways to cut urban congestion and name, beat, rank as well as assigned patrolling perim- pollution through the construction of new and light eter on the train. Further, the system will record and rail lines. transmit all the information to the main control room. AI can diagnose the condition of rail tracks and This will include the number of rounds undertaken by will push railways to repair and replace to improve the concerned ocer as well as the ocer’s current punctuality of trains. This will not only do regular location. repair and maintenance but passengers would know The software will provide an extra hand to the in advance that the train they are boarding would be security agencies. Also, it will certainly improve the delayed on certain days. train passengers’ security. pcquest.com twitter.com/pcquest facebook.com/pcquest linkd.in/pcquest [email protected] SEPTEMBER 2018 PCQUEST 69