A bird’s eye view of India’s rail network will show you countless lines criss-crossing one another and in the process connecting various spots. Be it transporting people or carrying goods, Indian trains traverse cities, towns and villages and form the backbone of the nation’s transport system. The Indian Railway’s website says that around 11,000 trains run everyday in the country, out of which 7,000 are passenger trains. No wonder then that Indian Railways (IR) is the largest rail network in Asia and the world’s second largest under one management. However, behind such mind boggling numbers and complexities, lies a train signaling system that is struggling to provide enhanced safety standards.Over the years, despite the introduction of new technology like LED colour lights, Integrated Power Supply System (IPS), Digital Axle Counters for single and multiple sections, GPS-based Anti-Collision Device (ACD), and more, accidents related to signaling are rampant. A 2012 report by a Chief Signal Engineer of South Central Railway puts this in perspective. It says, “On average, the new technology equipment application contributes more than 55% signaling incidents on IR, not only affecting the train operation but lowering the standards of safety too.”
Is Indian Railways on the right track?
Despite having one of the largest rail networks in the world, safety standards continue to be a grey area in India. The country has perhaps the worst reputation in the world when it comes to train accidents.
A report prepared by a high-level safety review committee set up by the Indian government in 2012 estimates that nearly 15,000 people get killed every year while crossing railway tracks.
No doubt that in the last decade or so, application of various types of newer signaling technologies was carried out. However, as far as safety is concerned, none of them has been able to bring about any significant change. Even technologies projected to be big-ticket safety systems completely failed. Anti-Collision Device (ACD) was one of them.
In 1999, Konkan Railway developed ACD with a view to reduce train accidents. Buoyed by the response to this, rail ministry then sanctioned implementation of ACD on a pilot basis in the Katihar – Guwahati – Dibrugarh section. In the subsequent years, inconsistencies in the conceptual design were discovered, some ACDs were found to be defective and the first site acceptance test failed. All these factors collectively led to the failure of ACD.
This way, ACD has not only been a burden on the exchequer but has also led to delay in introduction of enhanced safety systems in Indian Railways.
Train Protection and Warning System, which was deployed on two pilot projects, also did not yield desired results due to country specific implementation and environmental challenges.
During 2003-04, TPWS (similar to European Train Control System level 1) was sanctioned for the Chennai- Gummidipundi section of Southern Railway and Delhi - Mathura section of Northern Central Railway (NCR). However, a number of issues cropped up on both the stretches, ranging from less than desired efficiency to stalled tenders, and eventually nothing much happened on the ambitious TPWS front.
The way ahead
Passenger safety is non-negotiable and considering the traffic that Indian Railways caters to it should be of paramount importance. It is therefore essential to have advanced signaling systems in place so that there is no scope for compromise.Indian Railways is once again trying to develop and test a prototype of the Train Collision and Avoidance System (TCAS) in Andhra Pradesh. It has been created indigenously by local suppliers with support from Research Designs and Standard Organization (RDSO).Just like in the case of ACD, the trial run is being projected as successful and the technology is being considered for introduction without getting matured. This may lead to Indian Railways wasting few more years on TCAS and may still end up with no satisfactory result as any such sophisticated technology take years before it get stable and mature.
Signaling and train control solutions are extremely complex in nature and it has taken western countries years to develop appropriate systems. A good move will be to adopt technologies that have been globally proven and delivered desired results while at the same time continue with indigenously developed solutions. Rather than spending years to develop something from a scratch, it makes sense to indigenize already proven technology. In the past, Indian Railways officials have visited several countries to assess and validate technologies being used and have also run successful pilot projects of some of the solutions on Indian Railways tracks.Abroad, Europe and USA are examples worth emulating. In USA, ‘Positive train Control (PTC)’ and ITCS for command, control, communication and information is used. Besides a few track side identifiers, the train position and speed are correlated with precision using GPS signals. This reduces the probability of collision between trains and works all along the rail route.
Europe employs ETCS that creates a standardized train control system at European level to address concerns on track-to-train transmission of information. There are different levels of ETCS depending upon how the routes are equipped and the way in which the information is transmitted on the train. Italy and few other European countries have implemented their version of ETCS or ETCS-like solutions which can be applied to Indian conditions.
Taking a cue from its international counterparts, it is imperative for India to ensure not only the highest level of safety on its railway network but also improve capacity. We have highly capable people in Indian Railways and right technology is available from other parts of the world. All we need to do is move from the experimentation stage to the implementation mode, leveraging technology available for immediate implementation.
In India, Delhi Metro is a good example of deploying globally available, proven and acceptable technology and is equipped with a modern communication and train control system to ensure safety of passengers. Its trains use centralized automatic train control (CATC) comprising automatic train operation (ATO), automatic train protection (ATP) and automatic train signaling (ATS) systems. You would have never heard of accidents involving the Delhi Metro. Now with Line 7 and Line 8, DMRC is adopting a Communication Based Train Control for Safety and enhanced capacity that allows trains to run much closer to each other on the same infrastructure.
Given that passenger safety is absolutely crucial, the government must make provision to implement advanced signaling technology projects to improve safety and enhance capacity of our network. It is only then that along with being one of the busiest rail networks in the world, Indian Railways will also be one of the safest.
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