Indian Railways to be GPS Equipped Soon

With the advancement of technology now striking a chord with Indian public transportation services, Indian Railways is also planning to introduce GPS devices in most of their trains. GPS or Global Positioning System refers to a tracking device that will be fitted in 100 trains with an effort to map the location of these trains up to 10 meters and within a 2 minute delay. Under this pipeline project – Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (SIMRAN), all trains including Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto will be monitored by a satellite-based navigation system. Though, it’s an attempt to bring modernization in the railways, the location mapping will help in providing precise location of the trains through interactive mode on mobile phones, laptops, thereby eliminating the need for telephone inquiry. At present, the monitoring of train schedules is done manually which causes confusion in case of crisis situations and end up with colliding of the traffic on tracks. Reports suggest that the execution strategy for this project has already started between the Chennai and Tambaram railway stations. And GPS has contributed to the successful scheduling of 364 trains on this route. Installing GPS devices will cost roughly Rs. 70,000 – Rs. 1,00,000 per train.

Approximately Rs. 70 crore is estimated to be assigned to this project by the Center for Railway Information System (CRIS). Indian Space Research Organization has partnered with CRIS to aid in the development of this technology for the benefit of people all over India. If the supports are to believe, the inclusion of GPS modernization in trains would also help in reducing the number of accidents and fatalities that take place on the railroads. As per the recent stats, the death toll in India was 120 last year, and has already reached 22 this year. Hence, GPS devices will allow trains to locate one another and reduce the chance of accidents. During bad weather too, most of the accidents shall be avoided due to its proximity warning and other alert features. Individuals might also be able to track the trains using Google maps. This will give passengers exact locations of their whereabouts and expected times of trains as well.

For the coming months, Indian Railways has further indicated the provision of Internet in running trains, extension of optical fiber cable (OFC) over the entire rail route, IP based train control communication and replacement of overhead alignment with underground cables/OFC in order to improve services to passengers, improve reliability of the communication system and improve safety and capability of the transport system. The new Train enquiry system uses this tracking facility and allows for positional tracking of   trains. This can be used at http://www.trainenquiry.com/ Another interesting tracking service can be used at www.oyatri.com which allows you to track the train on SMS by keeping you updated about real time train movements, delays etc.