How Information Technology is going to impact Indian Railways?

Last updated on March 22nd, 2014 at 01:56 am

Information technology has served the human race in simplifying issues which had been day-to-day irritants some time back. It has redefined the way individuals, family, society, business and  government conducts itself by providing fast and accurate services, linked mobile communication, quick decision-making, optimum utilization of resources, value engineering and  value added services etc. As it made its beginning over Indian Railways, with the formation of CRIS in the year 1986, to develop and implement hardware and software to gain benefits of data engineering. It has made a perceptible change the way issues were  addressed 25 years ago. Has it actually matched the expectation of a new generation who is looking for loyal and speedy service with accuracy and without any queue through internet. 

One has to accept the volume of work involved in bringing information technology projects over such as large system with large variance. Implementation has to be slow and steady and cannot be overnight. Most important is that steady pace shall not be broken at any stage. Have us look, where do we stand in the sphere of information technology project implementation.  

IT projects which have been carried out and benefiting Indian Railways 

1. Unreserved Ticketing System: UTS started with a launch of a pilot project in 2002 at Northern Railway and today implemented to handle almost 6000 locations and 90% of the total ticket sold every day. This has facilitated not only availability of ticket at all time replacing SPTM but also management of unreserved travel data.
2. Passenger Reservation System: Reserved travel by Indian Railways is facilitated by the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) making a commencement in the year 1988-89. PRS provides reservation services to nearly   2.2 million passengers a day on over 2500 trains running throughout the country. The PRS Application CONCERT (Countrywide Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation and Ticketing) is the world’s largest online reservation application, prepared and maintained by CRIS. There are 44- Quota, 8-trains, 9 – classes, 162-concession and 127-coaches that make the system very complex and makes CRIS proud of managing the system so effectively.
3. Control Office Automation: The train operation over Indian Railways is monitored and checked through a Control office located in each Division. The charting of train run was done by color pen and a scale with manual calculation of time, distance and other parameters. With automation implemented, the controller only feeds the timings of passing a station and charting is done automatically. All performance parameters involving punctuality, average speed, GTKM, NTKM and PKM etc. are worked out immediately.
4. Freight Operation Information System: The Indian Railways carry more than 1.1 Billion metric tons of payload per year with nearly 5000 freight trains daily.  The Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) was the first project, which CRIS embarked upon. In fact the creation of CRIS is a by product of this effort in the mid eighties. FOIS began as an diligence to track and monitor the movement of wagons, locomotives and unit trains. Now it is a complete management module for freight trains handling the billing and revenue collections as well.
5. Integrated Coaching Management System: There are about 50000 passenger coaches forming a train with assigned composition. ICMS had made this daily exercise very simple with all performance parameters related to coaching operation worked out quickly facilitating improvement strategy.
6. National Train Enquiry System: NTES are integrated with ICMS to interface with passenger to communicate him passenger related relevant information such as current running, schedule timings, departure and arrival etc. This served the passenger knowing the running of train online and can avoid wastage of time at the station waiting for train running late.
7. Crew Management System: The crew of the train consists of a Loco Pilot, Assistant Loco Pilot and Guard. Crew works a trains from station A to B and then works back the train involving interchange from one division/zone to another. CMS has facilitated complete data management on system from signing on to off and all information on click of the mouse. This involved huge networking of 10-15 crew lobbies in each Zonal Railways.
8. Software Aided Training School: No Information technology can work effectively unless the user is trained to keep up and use the assets.
9. There are many other software introduced at zonal railways such as Material Management information system, PRIME and AFRESH etc. looking after the material, personal and finance of the railway.

IT  projects implemented test and trial only, but  awaiting full implementation

1. Maintenance Management: Indian Railways posses huge assets of fixed and rolling nature. This requires capital cost for procurement and replacement and revenue expenditure for maintenance. Maintenance plays an important role in improving the availability and reliability of assets. There is no transparent way to evaluate and compare maintenance standards of two units and with the implementation of software such as
   1. Freight Maintenance Management:  There are 2.3 lakhs wagons worth Rs. 60000Crs maintained in 158 depots employing 35500 staffs having a wage bill of Rs. 1525 Crs. Application of Information technology will benefit wagon tracking with history, reduced maintenance cost, lower down time, reduced inventory, predictive maintenance and failure analysis.
   2. Loco Shed Management System: There are around 10000 Diesel and Electric Locomotive involving capital cost of around 50000 Crs. Maintained in 100 loco sheds with 1 lakhs staff and total payout of around 4000 Crs. The information technology will provide optimum maintenance with improved availability and reliability and reduced maintenance cost.
   3. Workshop Information System: Workshops in Indian Railways are meant to periodical overhaul of all the rolling assets like coaches, wagon, locomotive, tower wagons etc. There are 34 shops employing 2 lakhs staff holding about 1.5 lakhs machinery and plant making it a very big set up. There are 150 types of coaches with holding of 70000, 50 types of wagon holding 2.5 lakhs and 30 types of locomotive with holding of about 10000. The Information technology project will bring more transparent availability of information in all respects of assets including manpower. Pilot project on five workshops completed in mid 2013 and the target for completion by 2015.
   4. Track Management System: The main objective of TMS is to get the benefits of material, equipment and manpower inputs made to track by transparent availability and flow of all the information at one place. This will help to optimize the life and utilization of assets without impairing the safety and passenger comfort by ensuring the optimum standards of track geometry by web enabling the existing manual inspection of track. The project is stated to be completed in 28 divisions and balance 39 divisions will also be completed during 2014.
   5. Signalling Maintenance Management System: There are a large number of signalling equipment located at each Railway station and processing such a large data for understanding the maintenance need of the asset is manually impossible. The project is expected to be completed by 2015.
2. Project Management: Indian Railway spends considerable money in different heads such as Capital, DRF, DF, M&P, for executing work under different plan heads. Compiling the status of each project for annual budget exercise and publishing Pink book is a tedious exercise.
   1. The software developed and implemented over Indian Railway is called “Indian Railway Projects Sanctions and Management” have made the job simple for field and all the intermediate level of controls and monitoring. The first phase is going to benefit  (i) online Data analysis and quick view of ‘New Proposals’ and ‘Works In Progress’ (ii) Interface with Budget Directorate (RB) for preparation of Budget Documents and (iii)  Quick retrieval of works information and generation of MIS. With the implementation of phase II, large many benefits will accrue making the project management a simple exercise such as (i) estimation (ii)  e-tendering (iii) contract management (iv) online measurement and bill payment etc.
3. Hand Held Terminal Project for TTEs facilitate on line checking of the passenger turned up and availability of information on line about the status of berths available for wait listed passenger. The CRIS website indicates trial under progress but no TTE of Rajdhani train found having this terminal but once implemented will help in bringing transparency of vacant berths. It will open up user friendly interface with the customer boosting his self esteem as compared to the situation when he has to chase TTE at station for accommodation.   But why it is slow?

List of projects which offers CHANGE but only on the drawing board

1. SATSaNG is the software that will make the job of time table planner very simple. The application has features that will enable creation of conflict free paths for train services and conflict free allocation of resources. The acronym SATSaNG means the collective search for truth, in Sanskrit. Planners at the Zonal level can use this application to refine their solutions and find newer ones with greater ease. This will also help the planner one day to segregate running of coaching and freight trains in the separate time corridor to minimize the effect of speed differential. Impact on the mobility of freight trains on a section whenever a new coaching  train is added never worked out. This software may help in gaining into such intricacies of train mobility. 

The management of  such a huge network with online monitoring is certainly a tough call. The challenge will further be growing upwards only. All projects when fully implemented and results accepted in its true spirit will benefit the Railways in improving its performance. There are total 45 projects listed on the website of CRIS of which 7 are implemented and balance under different stages of execution. In most of the projects, the major constraints are funds and lack of response from the field.

Information technology will be a challenge in near future. Railways should develop an internal IT cadre with recruitment of Computer Engineers through UPSC to develop, advance, implement, monitor and modify the IT aids over Indian Railways. Unless it is done, it may be difficult to sustain the full benefit of IT in Indian Railway overall system.