The sources revealed that about 100 new ‘Smart Coaches’ will be introduced soon by the Railways. The department of Indian Railways has devised a new ‘Smart Coach’ that is supposed to be backed with many new and advanced features. It has turned out that the newly constructed coach is been built under the ‘made in India’ initiative and is equipped with latest state-of-art and modern technology in the field. In the future, 100 new smart coaches will be rolled out and introduced. The features available in them cover the following as mentioned in below.
- State-of-art sensors – According to the information, the Modern Coach Factory based in Raebareli has devised out a Smart Coach number 18155 LACCN. It is been based upon the LHB platform and is backed with centralized computer and state-of-art sensor utilized to analyze the status of all sensors via single window.
- Coach diagnostic system – The energy harvester based coach diagnostic system and sensor determines the exact condition of the bearing, wheel as well as hard spots available on the track. The data and information is fed using the data concentrator and further transmitted to a remote server via GPRS/GPS and it can be used for diagnostic purpose as well.
- Security and surveillance – There are 6 cameras that are fitted with each coach and it provides live recording service too. And just for the record, using the PICCU footage, the live recording and data can be accessed from the control centre easily.
- WLI – Water Level Indicator – It is necessary to send a SMS to the watering station in case the water level falls down the half level. And this information can further be programmed and accessed at the coaching depot’s base monitoring unit.
- Digital destination board – Automated announcement triggers based on GPS are generated from the PICCU by making use of pre recorded voice segments related and relevant to the next station name, speed of train, expected time of arrival, distance remaining, safety as well as delay messages.
- Wi-Fi emergency talkback and infotainment system – By making use of mobile used application, travellers can actually see and hear music, songs, movies, play games as well as check out the journey progression on their SmartPhone and handhelds.
Aside from this, there are few improvisations and upgradations that have been planned to imbibe in version 2.0. It covers implying of HVAC item that are going to be added like the air quality index particulate pollution PM 2.5CO2, HEPA filter clogged filter indicator, electrostatic filter, SO2 level monitoring, fresh air monitoring, compressor cycle monitoring, UV filter power consumption etc. It also includes video analytics backed with unusual occurrence functionality, face detection function, and smoke and fire detection unit equipped with PA/PIS system and PICCU for emergency based evacuation. Adding to this, it also includes energy based metering module used to measure the coach’s energy consumption as well as WSP integration and provide toilet occupancy status along with logging of every passenger’s compliant or need.