CR to get SAT link to improve services Ties up with ISRO for accuracy of info about positioning of harbour line trains

CR to get SAT link to improve services

Ties up with ISRO for accuracy of info about positioning of harbour line trains

The harbour line commuters’ litany of woes, especially delays and wrong announcements, might end soon. Passengers will be given the exact status of their trains through indicators and announcements. The Central Railway has tied up with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to improve the city’s harbour line train services through satellites. “The technology involves giving a unique identity to each train and track down its real-time position with help of satellites. We are looking at implementing the indigenous technology on harbour line,” said Subodh Jain, Central Railway’s general manager. The technology, called the automatic train tracking system, has been developed by the Centre for Rail Information Systems, the railways’ information technology wing, along with the ISRO satellites. “It involves placing sensors on trains and uplinking them to the ISRO satellites. This way, we will be able to monitor the real-time location of the train and give precise, real-time status updates through indicators and announcements,” Jain said. The new system will also improve punctuality of trains on the harbour section. In case there is a huge time gap between two trains, the railway would ply another on the section to cover the gap. Sources said it was a foolproof technology which is in use on the Chennai suburban railway and there are less chances of error here. He said the sensors would interact with the computers linked to data loggers, installed at all stations, the moment any train approaches them. The data loggers will be linked to the hub created at the control office. The position data is periodically sent to the central server through the GSM transmitter. The monitoring software of the system will be loaded to the officials’ computers and the public interface will be through announcements and station indicator displays. He added that they would soon call for tenders for the project. The Central Railway has already installed train management system, which facilitates real-time monitoring of trains on large screens in a control room. “The train management system covers trains on the main line only,” Jain said. The train management system works on track circuits and points along the rails, while the new technology will use satellites, which cannot go wrong. Sources said the GPS receiver of the unit is capable of identifying the latitudinal and longitudinal position and ground speed of the train through information from GPS satellites.