Prayagraj: To ensure safer and speedy journey to passengers, Indian Railways would soon introduce two major concepts in the system of train operations.
Railways has approved Train Collision Avoidance System (ACAS), an indigenously developed system, which will help in avoiding accidents.
Besides, the Prime Minister has approved the proposal for allotment of 5 MHz Spectrum in 700 MHz frequency band to IR for public safety and security services at stations and in trains.
With this spectrum, IR has envisaged to provide LTE (Long Term Evolution) based mobile train radio communication on its route.
The estimated investment in the project is more than Rs 25,000 crore.
The project will be completed in the next five years, informs, CPRO, North Central Railways, Dr Shivam Sharma.
Sharma said, “Presently, the movement of trains is dependent on signalling system between a given block, wherein the signal turns from red to yellow and green, depending on the movement of train which has crossed the signal.
However, in ACAS, these signal posts will be installed with Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tag and the loco engine of each train would have the RFID reader.
The loco pilot would easily view the status of signal on the reader despite the fact that the signal would not be visible practically.” This would be helpful in maintaining the speed of the trains in the foggy conditions as the engine would automatically adjust the speed and there cannot be overshooting of signal as even if the pilot misses the signal, the system would initiate the brakes, automatically if the signal is red, he added.
“This indigenously developed ATP (Automatic Train Protection) system would help in avoiding train collisions thereby reducing accidents and ensuring passenger safety”, said Sharma.
Likewise, the purpose of the LTE for Indian Railways is to provide secure and reliable voice, video and data communication services for operational, safety and security applications.
It will be used for modern signalling and train protection systems and ensure seamless communication between loco pilots and guards.
It will also enable Internet of Things (IoT) based remote asset monitoring especially of coaches, wagons & locos, and live video feed of CCTV cameras in the train coaches to ensure efficient, safer and faster train operations.
“Since this will be dedicated bandwidth (5 MHz Spectrum in 700 MHz frequency), only to be used by the railways, the present communication system, which is based on cable and wire, would be replaced by telecommunication network using the bandwidth given to IR which would be faster and more secure,” he said.