Role of MIS In Indian Railway
April 11
2012
Indian Railways IT Interface
This Project focuses on various aspects of Indian Railways and Information System Interface.
Submitted To: Prof. Ritesh Singhal
Submitted By: Aaquib Mahfooz
Executive Summary
This report focuses o n various a s p e c t s o f I n d i a n R a i l w a y s an d
I n f o r m a t i o n System (IS) interface. Our project has three objectives viz. To examine the Railway and IS interface from the perspective of Railways, to identify uses of IS for improving effectiveness and efficiency of Railways and to evaluate issues pertaining to railways developing and offering IS infrastructure for public use.
We have covered in this report the history of IT & Information System i n t e r f a c e , various developments in Railway IT interface. We have studied the various uses of Information System in railways like Computer Passenger Reservation System, Integrated Multi-Train Passenger Reservation System, Country Wide Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation, Freight Operation Information System like RMS, PMS, ICMS and Centre for Railway Information System. We have also covered the Rail Net and different phases of c o n n e c t i v i t y a n d implementation of Rail Net.
In the next part of the report, we have studied the Rail Tel Corporation of India Ltd, Its Introduction and Objectives, Communication Requirement of Railways. We have focused on issues like Today’s Challenges Faced by Indian Railways and Future in Information Technology and Information System in Indian Railways. In the final part of this report, we have looked at the Railway IT interface across the globe that may be useful to identify the various uses of IT in Indian Railways.
Table of Contents
Introduction of IT & Information System Brief Description of Indian Railways History of Information System Interface Need for IT & Information System in Railways Earlier Development Computer Passenger Reservation System (CPRS) Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation system Countrywide Network Of Computerized Enhanced Reservation Freight Operations Information System ( FOIS) Rake Management System Parcel Management System/Integrated Coach Management System Centre for Railway Information Systems ( CRIS) Need For CRIS Rail NET Different Phases of Rail Net Rail Corporation of India Ltd Introduction
Communication Requirements for Railways
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 18 19 19 20 21 26 27
Objectives Challenges Faces by Indian Railways Railway IS – Interface around the globe Future Trends in IT in Indian Railways Bibliography
Indian Railways IS Interface
Introduction of IT & Information System
Information Technology (IT) is concerned with technology to treat information. The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications are its main fields. IT is the area of managing technology and spans a wide variety of areas that include computer software, information systems, computer hardware, programming languages but are not limited to things such as processes, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the IT domain. IT provides businesses with four sets of core services to help execute the business strategy: business process automation, providing information, connecting with customers, and productivity tools. Some of the modern and emerging fields of Information technology are next generation web technologies, bioinformatics, cloud computing, global information systems, large scale knowledgebase, etc. Information System is some kind of combination of information technology and the activities of people associated to support and execute the necessary operations and management of the system with the responsibility of decision-making. It is a system of people and technology depending on each other to achieve some common goal. Information Systems are implemented within an organization for the purpose of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of that organization. Capabilities of the information system and characteristics of the organization, its work systems, its people, and its development and implementation methodologies together determine the extent to which that purpose is achieved. A management information system (MIS) provides information which is needed to manage organizations efficiently and effectively. Management information systems involve three primary resources: people, technology, and information or decision making. Management information systems are distinct from other information systems in that they are used to analyze operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. decision support systems, expert systems, and executive information systems. 1|Page
Brief Description of Indian Railway
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India’s Independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. Indian Railways has 114,500 kilometres (71,147 mi). of total track over a route of 65,000 kilometres (40,389 mi) and 7,500 stations. It has the world's fourth largest railway network after those of the United States, Russia and China. The Indian railways are also pursuing to build the highest railway track in the world overtaking current record of Beijing- Lhasa Railway line. The railways carry over 30 million passengers and 2.8 million tons of freight daily. It is the world's fourth largest commercial or utility employer by number of employees, with over 1.4 million employees. As for rolling stock, IR owns over 240,000 (freight) wagons, 60,000 coaches and 9,000 locomotives.
Indian Railways (reporting mark IR) is an Indian state-owned railway company headquartered in New Delhi, India It is owned and operated by Government of India through Ministry of Railways. Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. As of March 2012, the Railway Ministry is headed by Mukul Roy, the Union Minister for Railways, and assisted by two ministers of State for Railways. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board which has a chairman five members and a financial commissioner. The first train in India was operational on 1851-12-22, used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee. A few years later, on 1853-04-16, the first passenger train between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thana covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles) was inaugurated, formally heralding the birth of railways in India.
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History of Information System Interface
60’ s
A dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a basic requirement for train operation. Plan to progressively computerize railways working was accepted in principle by Management and Labor Unions.
70’ s
Pay-rolls, Inventory control and operating statistics. Deployment of Computers for productivity improvement through building up operational data bases.
80’ s
Computerization of Passenger Reservation Arrangement. Developing a Freight Operations Information System Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways Production Units with the State-of-the-art Computer systems. Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Work-shops, Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes.
Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
Enterprise wide Computer system
90’ s
IT Applications for Passenger Business Area
Five Year Period Period 1: 2005-10 Period 2: 2010-15
Stage Automation
Description
The automation of the existing functional areas of railways. Examples are PRS and FOIS. By 2010, process automation will be by and large complete. In synergy stage the separate systems put in place will begin to interchange information amongst them and this information interchange process will be automated by the end of this period. The databases across the organizational network will find increasing acceptance as authentic sources of information. A total revamp of IS built in the last twenty years. It will include forecasting, modeling etc.
Synergy
Period 3: 2015-20
Global Acceptance
Period 4: 2020-25
Integration
Need For IT & Information System in Railways
Transportation Industries such as Railways operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment. This requires a continuous update of information about current status and location of these assets. The optimum utilization of material resources, which they deploy, would require collection and collation of accurate data on their current utilization and an inventive analysis of the information collected. Information Resource is a critical managerial tool for confronting and tackling the business challenges on a real time basis. Transportation i n dus t ri es are als o service industries and they thrive and flourish on Information - rich soil that provides them the vitally needed link to their customers and other major stakeholders. Railways being multi-locational, multi-functional and multi-divisional organization provide an ideal backdrop for Computer Networks, which can allow sharing of resources across the Corporation and information with their customers.
Railway Industry, being an age-old industry, finds many of its existing business and operational practices inadequate for adjusting in the current fast changing business environment. Unless, Railways also develop capabilities to harness information resources through the use of exploding information technology, as other industries are doing, its continued presence as a viable industry in future may become a question mark. On the contrary, if the railway system can exploit Information Technology to modernize their operations and practices to suit the needs of their customers, they can gain tremendous competitive advantage in the present and future business environment.
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Earlier Developments Realizing the important role that i n form ati o n plays in Railways operations, IR had embarked on its Computerization Program, earlier than many other organizations in the country. Towards the end of 60's, two positive developments took place in Indian Railways. Firstly, even though, computerization was perceived by many as a labor saving measure, IR could realize its potential advantage and the plan to progressively computerize Railways was accepted in principle by Management and the Labor Unions. Secondly, a dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a basic requirement for train operation, even though the future development of the merger of computers and communication to give birth to Information Technology was not actually visualized at that time. After the early introduction of regular flavor computer applications such as Pay rolls, Inventory control and Operating statistics, Railways were poised in the mid 70's for deployment of computers for productivity improvement through building up operational databases. However, certain administrative issues and political development came in the way of bringing about any further developments in the field of computerization. The period between mid 70's to early 80's were however utilized by IR to develop a blue print for further computerization. During the beginning of the 80's IR decided on
Computerization of the Passenger Reservation Arrangement. Developing a Freight Operations Information System.
Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways and Production Units with the State-of-the-art Computer systems e n a b l i n g t h e organization t o computerize more applications and increasing the volume of users.
Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Workshops, Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes. Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
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Computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS)
Out of the total passengers carried by IR, inter-city passengers constitute a mere 9% of the total volume. But, this small proportion, out of the total, generated 176 billion passenger-km out of a total of 341 billion passenger-km, about 52% of the total. They also bring in a revenue of Rs. 42.9 billion in a total passenger revenue of Rs. 60 billion, constituting roughly 72% of the total. It is a matter of comfort for IR that this market segment is a well-patronized one and in order to meet the situation of demand over running supply, the customers have been provided with the facility of making their reservation on these trains, 30 days in advance. The seats/berths reservation system on trains is a fairly complex activity, not only because of volume involving more than 600,000 seats/berths reservations per day, but also because of seven different categories of trains operating, using 72 types of coaches with seven classes of reservation, more than 40 types of quotas and more than 80 kinds of concessional tickets. The method of calculation of fare is also quite complex as charges are based on the distance, comfort level provided and the transit time. Because of this complexity and sheer volume involved, IR undertook management of Reservation work through computers. A pilot project consisting of a few popular trains implemented at New Delhi in November 1985 came out successful and was well received by the customers. By May 1987, the entire New Delhi Reservation Load was computerized. The stand-alone VAX Computer Systems were further implemented at remaining three metropolitan cities, namely, Mumbai (June '87), Calcutta (July '87) and Chennai (October '87) and they account for over 40% of reservation volume. The last stand-alone Cyber Computer System was implemented at Secunderabad (July '89), which was subsequently replaced by VAX computer system (Jan '95). Many other stations having advance reservation arrangements were connected as remote terminals to the existing five computer systems for accessing the entire database of the host computer. In the computerized system, IR decided that technical and service considerations would be used to determine the host to which a station would be linked up. To improve the service levels further, by providing better access to customers, remote terminals from the host computers are also being provided at satellite locations in the Metropolitan cities. In some major cities, satellite terminals from five host computer systems were also provided, thus allowing customers access to reservation databases residing there.
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Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS)
The Passenger Reservation System Software is given the name Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS) and consists of roughly 2,700 Sub routines. Developed through 30 man years of programming effort in the language of FORTRAN, the software functions as an integrated system of four main modules, which handle the functional requirements of Reservation, Enquiry, Accounting and Charting. The system has full scale back up and recovery facilities. The entire computerized PRS system, thus, functions as five stand-alone systems. The stand-alone architecture does not allow reservation at a terminal from databases in two different host computers. The provision of remote terminals at major stations from more than one host computer partially takes care of this, though the customer has to stand in two or more queues. IR now plans to inter-link the five host computers using networking software and distributed transaction processing. This will provide access to databases in all the five host computers at any terminal in the country. The entire system can then cover almost all reservation quotas on IR, with the databases distributed over five computer locations, providing reservation access all over the country. As a first major step towards the goal of single image passenger reservation system, the first prototype of PRS Networking Software.
? PRS networking of entire Indian Railways completed in April, 1999. ? PRS is running currently at 1,200 locations, Deploying 4,000 terminals, covering journeys of 3,000 trains and executing ONE MILLION passenger transactions per day. ? Internet booking of tickets was started In August 2002. ? TATKAL has been converted from a separate coach to a normal Quota and enabled for all trains in 2004 ? Internet booking timings extended to 4:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. from March 2005 .
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CONCERT (Countrywide Network of Computerized E n h a n c e d Reservation)
CONCERT using F O R T R A N ( 30%) and C (70%) languages was implemented at Secunderabad in January '95. CONCERT is written, keeping in mind the Client-Server architecture of Computer System to achieve easy hardware expansion ability in future. Its message routing feature for WAN (Wide Area Network) implementation is achieved through R T R s o f t w a r e and Router h a r d w a re , connected directly to an Ethernet backbone. As a first phase of CONCERT implementation, the IMPRESS software version at the two stand-alone PRS systems at Secunderabad and New Delhi has been replaced with CONCERT and work is in progress for networking these two systems, using 64 kbps channels. The network application modules, once successfully completed, are expected to get extended to PRS at Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. After the full- scale implementation, the requirement of communication channels will come down, as there will be no need for extending circuits for connecting remote terminals to particular PRS location only, in view of every terminal Indian Railways IT becoming universal. CONCERT will also add multiple lap functionality resulting in better customer service.
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Freight Operations Information System (FOIS)
The market share of IR in the total freight traffic carried in the country has been declining in the last 20 years mainly due to the inability of IR to carry all the traffic offered to it. This inability arises from the fact that the railways have been consistently facing severe shortage of Rolling Stock for carrying all traffic and serious constraints in line capacity for moving the traffic. While considerable inputs are needed for augmenting the capacity of rolling stock as well as line capacity, th e optim um utilization of existing resources i s considered
more imperative for carrying additional volume of traffic. It is of common knowledge that railway systems all over the world have profitably used computerization for improving the utilization of rolling stock assets of their systems.
Realizing the significant contribution that computerization can make in improving the utilization of rolling stock assets, Indian Railways have been planning from the early stages for the introduction of use of computers in the freight operations. In the early 70's the advance transmission of consisting from marshalling yard to marshalling yard was attempted but the inherent limitations of the hardware available at that time and the nonavailability of reliable communication lines thwarted the early attempts. The administrative issues and political developments which were responsible for stagnancy in the area of computerization during late 70's also played a major part in delaying further introduction of computers in freight operations. Ultimately, Indian Railways decided in 1986 to go in for an integrated computer communication system called Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) with an objective to computerize the information relating to al l operational activities and monitor the performance of all activity centers connected with freight traffic management. 9| P a g e
FOIS will maintain data banks of all fixed and rolling stock assets of the IR with their characteristic features, to help proper evaluation and optimization of their use. All the data will be captured dynamically, as an event is happening. Such data banks will be used to improve the quality of decision making and for producing management information. Reports on all aspects of freight operations, without the need to collect past data, every time. For this, FOIS will have many sub-systems for handling individual activities. It was anticipated that t he introduction of FOIS would bring about a minimum of 10% improvement in Wagon utilization and 5% improvement in Locomotive utilization. The FOIS architecture is two tier, with a central system at Railway Board level, processing all identified core functions relating to moving assets and Zonal Systems at 5 locations processing all local functions carried out at Activity Reporting Centers such as Goods Sheds and Sidings, Transshipment Points, Yards, Stations, Interchange
Points, Wagon Repair Depots, Locomotive Sheds, Fuelling Points, Crew Changing Points, Carriage & Wagon Workshops, Locomotive Workshops etc. While the central computer system is located in New Delhi, the five Zonal Computer Systems are located at New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Secunderabad. For implementing FOIS, aft er surveying the similar technologies available in world railways, it was decided to import software from Canadian National Railroad for the data processing at the central computer. This software called TRACS (Traffic Reporting and Control System) ran on IBM compatible machines and had been implemented earlier in Southern Pacific Railroad, Canadian National Railroad and British Rail. The Central System handles the core functions like control of wagon movement, control of train movement, locomotive movement, scheduling and routing of traffic, empty wagon distribution, container traffic, safety management, marketing applications, total system performance statistics, corporate planning etc. The Zonal Systems handle distributed field functions like yard management, local area management (inclusive of Goods sheds, Transhipment sheds, Invoice preparation and invoicing), maintenance and repairs of wagons and locomotives, crew management, fuel management, safety management, statistical (query based, scheduled, off-line and message) reports, accounting, billing, costing and apportioning of revenue among the Zonal Railways etc. The assessment of the cost of FOIS Project has ranged from Rs.2.1 billion (1979) to Rs.5 billion (1982), to Rs.17 billion (1986). The cost has since been revised down to Rs.11 billion in 1988, at 198 6 prices. The major reason for cost fl u ct u at i ons were the Uncertainty over creation of supporting communication infrastructure to cater the need of reliable and speedy computer communication across the length and breadth of IR, spanning all over India.
Rake Management System
The Rake Management System (RMS) is a set of utilities and tools designed for analysis and decision making to do with the overall use of physical train units (rakes), their deployment, maintenance and cycles for suburban train services. The RMS also provides other useful information like occupancy profiles of trains at terminals, platforms and sidings and is therefore useful in other activities in operations planning, such as time-tabling, maintenance planning and crew scheduling.
The RMS consists of the following parts: Post-processing: It summarizes the information about stabling lines movements, car-sheds movements in accordance with the availability of stabling lines and also optimizes the total distance run by the rake in these activities Rostering: After the daily optimization of total number of rakes used to run all the services in the timetable and total distance run by them, rostering is used in assignment of rakes to the starting services of the day so that average weekly distance is covered by each rake and each rake is assigned to weekly maintenance activity during some day in the week. So it is the total overall weekly optimization of the uses of rakes in conjunction with Rake-Linker and Post-processing. Occupancies: After the rake cycles, stabling and car-sheds movements are generated by Rake Linker and Post-processing, it generates the occupancy profiles of the rakes at every station and track with platform and track preferences which is further used in checking the feasibility of the platforms and tracks availability and feasible assignment (done by a Platform Allocation algorithm). If all the occupancies are feasible then it generates the final assignment of the platform and tracks to every service and these are then charted in a visually convenient form. Perturbation and sensitivity analysis: After the rake cycles are obtained from Rake Linker, its goal is to find out some critical services if any so that by modifying some parameter values for these services, a rake or an empty run of a rake can be saved. This can be run in more than one step in order to minimize number of rakes or minimize the total cost of the network The parameters which are considered for modification are turn-around time at the terminus, running time of the service, preponement/postponement of the timings. Crew Scheduling: After the Rake Table is obtained from Rake Linker, it assigns the crews to the rakes in accordance with several crew constraints. Maintenance Activities: There are many different types of maintenance activities of the rakes like weekly maintenance, biweekly maintenance, mid-life rehabilitation, end-life rehabilitation etc. The RMS is therefore an attempt at providing a comprehensive set of tools for exercise of rake deployment for services, and maintenance. At the moment, efforts are underway to implement incremental parts of the system on the suburban system in Central Railway and Western Railway in Mumbai.
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Parcel / Integrated Coach Management System
Railway Board Sanctioned 2Crore rupees for Pilot Parcel Management System between 7 stations. PMS started at New Delhi Parcel Office on 1st November 2006. Direct capture of parcel weight electronically. Universal Windows for all destinations for booking. Single Window for weightment and cash payment possible. Advance Uploading Guidance about inward parcel from the system at destination.Tracking Parcel with the help of Bar Code Technology. Parcels is loaded after Bar Code Scanning and loading summary is recorded.
Millions of passengers book their journeys everyday with the confidence that when their train rolls up on the appointed day, it would bring a coach which has place for them. To meet this expectation day in day out, Indian Railways need to track over 50 thousand coaches. By efficiently deploying the fleet, railways are able to run more services for the benefit of their passengers, while minimizing any chances of disruption and disappointment. IR also must ensure that these assets receive timely servicing and maintenance. Depending upon the need, the system can deliver historical records from past years in printed reports, or up-to-the-minute information on an official’s cell phone. Coaching Stock Module is the second vital phase of Integrated Coaching Management System. There has been substantial growth of passenger traffic on Indian Railways in the last few years and in the number of coaches for the different types like vacuum and air brake, Ac 1st class, 2-tier, 3-tier, chair car, and Non-A/C, Sleeper Coaches, Day Coaches, Pantry Cars and Brake Vans etc.
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Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS)
In 1986, the Ministry of Railways established CRIS to be an umbrella for all computer activities on Indian Railways. They also entrusted it with the task of design, development and implementation of FOIS, along with its associated communications infrastructure. The Center started functioning from July 1987. It is an autonomous organization headed by the Managing Director. CRIS is mainly a project-oriented organization engaged in development of major computer systems on the Railways. CRIS has acquired special knowledge and expertise in the field of informatics. With such a rich practical experience, a dedicated team of professionals and its own R&D effort, CRIS aims to be a leader in this fast developing field.
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Need For CRIS
A separate organization was considered better suited to take up all computer activities on IR mainly for the following reasons: To avoid duplication of efforts by individual Railways. To ensure standardization of computer hardware and software on the Railways. To undertake design and development of major applications on Railways
requiring higher levels of expertise, faster decision making and system wide applicability. To insulate the organization from day to day working of the Railways so that its objectives are not lost sight of. Need for a combined effort of Railways and Computer Specialists, considered best suited for the development of the computer applications on Railways. Need for development of expertise in highly specialized fields like Operation Research, Simulation, Expert System, CAD/CAM, Process Control etc. Need for greater flexibility to keep pace with the fast changing technology.
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RAILNET
RAILNET has the potential for transfer of messages, files, e-mails between the important locations on Indian Railways. In addition, the internal web site in Railway Board and Zonal Railways Headquarters supports codes, manual procedure orders, policy directives and other i m p o r t a n t information for day-do-day use b y various officials.
Detailed estimate amounting to Rs.7.81 crore for the work of RAILNET was sanctioned in Nov 98 by the Railway Board .The structure of RAILNET is as under.
RAILNET will provide computer c o n n e c t i v i t y between R ai l wa y Board a n d Zon al Railways, Production Units, Centralized Training Institutes, MTP/Calcutta & 46 Major Training Institutes. 15 | P a g e RDSO, CORE,
Different Phases of Rail Net
The contract for Phase-I was awarded to M/s Tata Infotech Limited. The scope of work included Supply,Installation,Testing and Commissioning of Servers, Routers,Centralized Switches, Modems etc. including Internet/Intranet software. The work has been completed except for NFR, DLW and DCW because of non-availability of site/connectivity.
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Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited
Introduction
Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited (Rail Tel ) an ISO-9001:2000 organization is a Government of India undertaking under the Ministry of Railways. The Corporation was formed in Sept 2000 with the objectives to create nation wide Broadband Telecom and Multimedia Network in all parts of the country, to modernize Train Control Operation and Safety System of Indian Railways and to significantly contribute to realization of goals and objective of national telecom policy 1999. RailTel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Railways. RailTel is building state of the art multimedia telecom network using SDH/DWDM based transmission systems and high end MPLS-IP routers. RailTel has extensive expertise in building telecom networks. Moreover, RailTel draws its manpower from signal and telecom branch of Indian Railway which has been in the business of construction, operation and maintenance of telecom systems for more than 50 years.
Railways have various communication needs. It is very important for railways to have a reliable communication system since it is essential for efficient and safe operations of trains. As such, formation of Broadband Telecom and Multimedia Corporation was considered by Ministry of Railways. The Corporation registered as Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited was incorporated in September 2000. 18 | P a g e
Communication Requirements for Railways
Railways have various communication requirements as follows:
1. The primary requirement is for control and block communication. Control
communication is required for monitoring from central control office; the running of trains on a section of 200 to 300 Km. The central control office is connected to all the stations. Block communication is necessary for safe movement of trains from one station to the next.
2. Administrative communication requirements that include:
Connecting divisional headquarters with important stations Connecting Zonal headquarters with the divisions Connecting Railway Board with Zones Emergency communication for crew of disabled train to talk to section controllers
3. Use of communication channels for data transmission for:
Passenger Reservation System Freight Operation Information System Management Information System Passenger Information System
Objectives of Rail Tel
Following are the main objectives of Rail Tel Corporation.
1. To modernize railways train control, operational and safety systems and networks. 2. To create a nationwide broadband telecom and multimedia network to supplement
national telecom infrastructure to spur growth of telecom internet and IT enabled value services in all parts of the country specially rural, remote and backward areas.
3. To g e n e r a t e the revenues needed for implementing Railway’ developmental s
projects, safety enhancement and asset replacement programs.
4. To significantly contribute to realization of goals and objectives of National
Telecom Policy, 1999.
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Today’s Challenges Faced by Railways
The Large Geographical Dispersion of our country is the biggest challenge for Indian Railways. To get all of the country connected via railways is very challenging indeed. There are so many states and so many stations providing so many applications and platforms to work on. The diversification of these computing platforms is yet another challenge for Indian Railways, to connect the whole of country with railways and railways with IT is very challenging. Also the remote areas provide lot of problems in integrating and to take the technology to such remote areas is very difficult job. Yet another challenge standing besides Railways is 24*7 operations throughout the year. Even if one entry goes wrong the whole of network will suffer. Also the OLTP applications support public services is another challenge for the Indian railways.
INDIAN RAILWAY ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT CRM OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT SYSTEMS DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS DATA CAPTURE
TERMINALS,FIXED, HAND-HELD
APPLICATIONS
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
Strategic Enterprise Management Market Research FOIS Engineering Planning Human Resources Management Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing PRS Crew Scheduling Rolling Stock Maintenance Procurement and Contract Management Managerial Accounting Call Centre Station Management Inventory Management Cash Flow Management INDIAN RAILWAY PORTAL
Financial Accounting Customer Data Base PARCEL MANAGEMENT Infrastructure Maintenance Real Estate Management
Regulatory Reporting
Customer Service Train Planning Asset Life Cycle Management Litigation Management
CONTROL OFFICE APPLICATIONS
PDAS
MOBILE PHONES
DATA LOGGERS SCADA SYSTEMS
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Higher demand for Freight and Passenger transport, with planned economic growth Need for capacity enhancement in the Railway network over the next 10-15 years Technological uprgadation for better maintenance of railway assets Greater competition from Roadways, with major investments in Highway network upgradation Increase freight market share through higher availability of services at competitive prices Greater attention to passenger services and safety Upgradation of the Railway Production units for improved efficiency and productivity
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Railway-IS Interface around the Globe
The study of railway-IT interface in developed and undeveloped countries has great implications for the Indian railway industry. The knowledge about use of information technology in railway operations around the globe would help us improve our rail transportation and would enhance prompt commodity movements. Thus there is a great need to enhance and put into effect such information technology, adding that cooperation in unifying different national railway systems would be a valuable advance for the globalisation and liberalization processes. Three different systems have been studied here and they have very interesting applications that could be used in the Indian context.
South and East Africa
About the use of information technology in railway operations in South and East Africa, the Deputy Managing Director of TRANSNET, says the national railway operator of South Africa, SPOORNET, has developed a rail computer network from which all the countries of the region were benefiting. The southern railways operate a common rail system based on the "Cape gauge". About eleven southern and eastern African countries were linked and long-term strategies for those railways are in major flux, due to plans for restructuring, commercialisation, and privatisation. The boom in mining in Tanzania and Congo, economic growth in Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, and increased global trade through the Indian Ocean have resulted in large volumes of rail-friendly traffic to and from inland destinations where road transport was often not viable. There are rail strategies aimed at providing reliable, cost-effective means of gaining a share of that traffic. Intermodal operation through alliances with road carriers to provide door-to-door service is also being pursued. Of late, there has been consensus that railways would not survive if they continued to take for granted their previous privileged status as national carriers. Diagnosis of the long-term future of the transport industry worldwide had indicated a slow but steady decline in the types of commodities, which had traditionally sustained railways. Effective responses to this included aggressive cost reduction, extending reach to value-added services beyond the railhead, and penetration of growing markets for intermodal higher-value finished goods, with alliances playing a key role.
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Thus was proposed the introduction of a computer-network rail tracking technology system, in which an expeditor could trace the destination and full information on any merchandise until delivery. Such hour-by-hour inspection of commercial containers would enable exporters to assure the security of their merchandise and guarantee its prompt arrival. Likewise, the network was beneficial for goods transported by ships and transferred to rail or road carriers . The necessity of creating intermodal systems and the cost pressure behind the trend would require more rational rail transportation and transhipment. Intermodal systems need electronic media, globalisation of economic rules and information, and the removal of customs barriers. Rail transportation had been improved thanks to high technology introduced by such companies as Siemens and TSS. Such firms had built integrated systems providing solutions for locomotive transport and satellite guiding systems. New regulations by States had also promoted the creation and adoption of new technology.
East Japan Railway Company (JR East)
The utilization of Information System for innovations in railway operations and improvements in customer service has been one of the main driving forces behind the establishment of computer systems at JR East. In July 1987, under the direction of the company's first president, Mr. Yamashita, the "Office Automation Promotion'' project was launched and work for the establishment of a "Integrated Management Information System'' was begun. Operation of the three main systems, "Station based Point of Sales System'', "Expense Management System'', and "Integrated Railway Operation System'' started in 1989 - 90.
The scale of JR East computer systems has increased by leaps and bounds ever since. During the 10 years since its establishment, the company has rapidly developed computer systems for business management. With the computer system supporting the administration of the company topping the list, computers at present are utilized in various sections, including general affairs and accounting, business operations, transportation and facilities related areas and related businesses. The large scale of the
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company's overall computer system becomes apparent when expressed numerically. The total system comprises 29 host computers, 16,000 terminals, approximately 70 megasteps of software, and approximately 2 terabytes of files.
To give a brief overall outline of computer systems at JR East, the computers in operation at JR East can be categorized by system into the following three groups:
1. Train operation related systems: Systems in this category are employed for the daily operation of trains, and for the operation and maintenance of facilities along railway routes. In these systems the train operation transmitting operation schedules to the respective sites, as well as for the daily management of transport operations, the operation of trains, the supervision of operation staff and for other transportation service related tasks. In other words, the overall system is constructed with the railway operation schedule database at the center of all transportation-planning operations. In addition, all data pertaining to the tracks and the facilities along the railway routes, including electric power facilities, signals and communication facilities, are compiled into a database and used by maintenance personnel for management of facilities during daily inspections and repair work. A command system capable of such functions as sending out alarms during emergencies and supporting recovery work in case of accidents has also been set up, to be used by the facilities supervisory personnel who control facilities management operations from the centre.
2. Customer related systems: The second category comprises computer systems employed in areas within the railway business and related businesses, which involve dealing with customers. These systems, in which customer related information is compiled into databases, are utilized in carrying out business related operations such as the introduction and sale of travel related products and services, introduction of the various projects connected with the "View card'', business credit card issued by the company, the sale of commuting tickets to business customers, and so on.
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The system also makes possible the management and calculation of revenues, on a per day basis, by adding the total amount of sales proceeds from all the stations in JR East area as put together by the Station based POS (Point of Sales) System and the total amount of income from the sales of various types of reserved tickets, compiled by MARS (Multiple Access Reservation System). It also enables the enterprise to settle accounts with other companies on a daily basis and calculate the company's net earnings. It is expected that marketing tactics, using the above mentioned customer information database, will play an important role in the future, as the company pursues its various strategic business policies.
3. Business operation related systems: The last of the three categories comprises systems, which support the planning of management strategies and decision-making processes, directly tied to the administration of the company. The overall system comprises a management related database containing information considered necessary for the management of the company, extracted from the two above databases. In addition to providing company executives with the information necessary to run the company, the system also provides each of the departments in the headquarters and the branch offices with the various data necessary for carrying out office business. Systems in this category include the executive data management system which stores data pertaining to executive meetings, a system for tracking expenditures by the various sections of the company, a database capable of constantly providing information in areas such as the company's current status of earnings, the number of passengers getting on and off trains, and so on. In addition, there is also an office based computer network providing offices with e-mail services, bulletin boards, as well as the means to reserve meeting rooms and carry out other daily tasks.
To outline a few examples of Systems in Operation, we have the following (i) COSMOS (Computerized Safety, Maintenance and Operation Systems of Shinkansen) In this system computers are employed to assist in a series of Shinkansen related tasks, such as Shinkansen operation planning, operation, supervision, management of facilities, and control of electric power systems.
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(ii) Green Information System The system compiles a database from information pertaining to needs and opinions expressed by customers, obtained from such sources as stations and newspapers. The information is made available at all times, through computer terminals at the company headquarters and other locations, and is utilized and reflected in improvements made to station facilities, train accommodations, and in the way the staff deal with customers, as well as in making improvements in the planning of transportation and other services and operations.
(iii) Travel Operations Related System The System enables JR East to carry out its travel related business operations in the same manner as large travel agencies. The system is utilized for the registration and sale of travel related products and services, for making reservations and automatically providing related facilities with reservation information as well as for supervising the selection of products and services offered, retrieving various types of information and so on. Currently a database containing customer related information is being compiled, and the system is undergoing downsizing and other improvements, which include fitting the system with the latest model terminals.
(iv) Card System The system supports operations related to "View Card'', the credit card offered by JR East. It is used for issuing the cards, settling accounts, analysing the status of card related business operations and managing customer information, as well as for the retrieval of various kinds of data.
(v) Facilities Management System By compiling data related to facilities along the railway into a database and enabling the use of the information during daily inspections and repair work, the system helps make facilities maintenance work more efficient.5. Future Plans for the Systems
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Future Trends in IT In Indian Railways
In what could be a first for the Indian Railways, a high-speed corridor for long distance passenger trains has been proposed between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. An announcement to this effect is likely to be made on March 14 by Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi. The 500-km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, which currently takes seven hours on the fastest train the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Duronto Express, is lined up for the introduction of bullet trains.
Initially trains will run at 200 km/h, but gradually, after significant improvements and upgradation of crucial signalling and telecommunication systems, the trains will run at speeds in excess of 350 km/h," said a senior railway official, on condition of anonymity. This would drastically bring down the travel time of passengers frequenting these two vital and financially strong cities, bringing the travel time down to a mere 4 hours. Railway authorities claim that this corridor would be the much-needed fillip for Indian Railways, and have estimated the high-speed line to cost Rs 60,000 crore. Ticketing Solutions (Centralized, Stand-alone, Mobile, Smart Card, Self Service, Internet etc.); value added services to customer On line and e-enabled Freight Management System /Integrated revenue accountable system. Train Charting and Control Systems /RFID based Wagon/Parcel Tracking Systems. Integration of Railway Systems with Railway Station Systems /Safety Systems (GPS, Embedded Systems). GIS based Track Maintenance Systems/ Integrated Materials Management System / Fixed assets mgmt. 26 | P a g e
Bibliography
Articles “Management Information System”, James A O’Brien,George M Marakas & Ramesh Behl. “ IT Applications On Indian Rail Network”, M.R. Ramakrishna & Ajaykumar A. Bhatt. Reports
Project Report of Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited by Ministry of Railways
Websiteshttp://www.google.co.inhttp://www.indianrail.gov.inhttp://www.irctc.co.inhttp://www.wikipedia.orghttp://www.webopedia.orghttp://www.railtelindia.comhttp://www.trainweb.org/railnethttp://www.railnet.orghttp://www.akgim.edu.inhttp://www.indianrailways.gov.inhttp://www.pib.nic.in
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doc_758413706.doc
April 11
2012
Indian Railways IT Interface
This Project focuses on various aspects of Indian Railways and Information System Interface.
Submitted To: Prof. Ritesh Singhal
Submitted By: Aaquib Mahfooz
Executive Summary
This report focuses o n various a s p e c t s o f I n d i a n R a i l w a y s an d
I n f o r m a t i o n System (IS) interface. Our project has three objectives viz. To examine the Railway and IS interface from the perspective of Railways, to identify uses of IS for improving effectiveness and efficiency of Railways and to evaluate issues pertaining to railways developing and offering IS infrastructure for public use.
We have covered in this report the history of IT & Information System i n t e r f a c e , various developments in Railway IT interface. We have studied the various uses of Information System in railways like Computer Passenger Reservation System, Integrated Multi-Train Passenger Reservation System, Country Wide Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation, Freight Operation Information System like RMS, PMS, ICMS and Centre for Railway Information System. We have also covered the Rail Net and different phases of c o n n e c t i v i t y a n d implementation of Rail Net.
In the next part of the report, we have studied the Rail Tel Corporation of India Ltd, Its Introduction and Objectives, Communication Requirement of Railways. We have focused on issues like Today’s Challenges Faced by Indian Railways and Future in Information Technology and Information System in Indian Railways. In the final part of this report, we have looked at the Railway IT interface across the globe that may be useful to identify the various uses of IT in Indian Railways.
Table of Contents
Introduction of IT & Information System Brief Description of Indian Railways History of Information System Interface Need for IT & Information System in Railways Earlier Development Computer Passenger Reservation System (CPRS) Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation system Countrywide Network Of Computerized Enhanced Reservation Freight Operations Information System ( FOIS) Rake Management System Parcel Management System/Integrated Coach Management System Centre for Railway Information Systems ( CRIS) Need For CRIS Rail NET Different Phases of Rail Net Rail Corporation of India Ltd Introduction
Communication Requirements for Railways
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 11 12 13 14 15 16 18 18 19 19 20 21 26 27
Objectives Challenges Faces by Indian Railways Railway IS – Interface around the globe Future Trends in IT in Indian Railways Bibliography
Indian Railways IS Interface
Introduction of IT & Information System
Information Technology (IT) is concerned with technology to treat information. The acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications are its main fields. IT is the area of managing technology and spans a wide variety of areas that include computer software, information systems, computer hardware, programming languages but are not limited to things such as processes, and data constructs. In short, anything that renders data, information or perceived knowledge in any visual format whatsoever, via any multimedia distribution mechanism, is considered part of the IT domain. IT provides businesses with four sets of core services to help execute the business strategy: business process automation, providing information, connecting with customers, and productivity tools. Some of the modern and emerging fields of Information technology are next generation web technologies, bioinformatics, cloud computing, global information systems, large scale knowledgebase, etc. Information System is some kind of combination of information technology and the activities of people associated to support and execute the necessary operations and management of the system with the responsibility of decision-making. It is a system of people and technology depending on each other to achieve some common goal. Information Systems are implemented within an organization for the purpose of improving the effectiveness and efficiency of that organization. Capabilities of the information system and characteristics of the organization, its work systems, its people, and its development and implementation methodologies together determine the extent to which that purpose is achieved. A management information system (MIS) provides information which is needed to manage organizations efficiently and effectively. Management information systems involve three primary resources: people, technology, and information or decision making. Management information systems are distinct from other information systems in that they are used to analyze operational activities in the organization. Academically, the term is commonly used to refer to the group of information management methods tied to the automation or support of human decision making, e.g. decision support systems, expert systems, and executive information systems. 1|Page
Brief Description of Indian Railway
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India’s Independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, the Indian Railways, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. IR operates both long distance and suburban rail systems on a multi-gauge network of broad, metre and narrow gauges. Indian Railways has 114,500 kilometres (71,147 mi). of total track over a route of 65,000 kilometres (40,389 mi) and 7,500 stations. It has the world's fourth largest railway network after those of the United States, Russia and China. The Indian railways are also pursuing to build the highest railway track in the world overtaking current record of Beijing- Lhasa Railway line. The railways carry over 30 million passengers and 2.8 million tons of freight daily. It is the world's fourth largest commercial or utility employer by number of employees, with over 1.4 million employees. As for rolling stock, IR owns over 240,000 (freight) wagons, 60,000 coaches and 9,000 locomotives.
Indian Railways (reporting mark IR) is an Indian state-owned railway company headquartered in New Delhi, India It is owned and operated by Government of India through Ministry of Railways. Indian Railways is a department owned and controlled by the Government of India, via the Ministry of Railways. As of March 2012, the Railway Ministry is headed by Mukul Roy, the Union Minister for Railways, and assisted by two ministers of State for Railways. Indian Railways is administered by the Railway Board which has a chairman five members and a financial commissioner. The first train in India was operational on 1851-12-22, used for the hauling of construction material in Roorkee. A few years later, on 1853-04-16, the first passenger train between Bori Bunder, Bombay and Thana covering a distance of 34 km (21 miles) was inaugurated, formally heralding the birth of railways in India.
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History of Information System Interface
60’ s
A dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a basic requirement for train operation. Plan to progressively computerize railways working was accepted in principle by Management and Labor Unions.
70’ s
Pay-rolls, Inventory control and operating statistics. Deployment of Computers for productivity improvement through building up operational data bases.
80’ s
Computerization of Passenger Reservation Arrangement. Developing a Freight Operations Information System Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways Production Units with the State-of-the-art Computer systems. Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Work-shops, Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes.
Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
Enterprise wide Computer system
90’ s
IT Applications for Passenger Business Area
Five Year Period Period 1: 2005-10 Period 2: 2010-15
Stage Automation
Description
The automation of the existing functional areas of railways. Examples are PRS and FOIS. By 2010, process automation will be by and large complete. In synergy stage the separate systems put in place will begin to interchange information amongst them and this information interchange process will be automated by the end of this period. The databases across the organizational network will find increasing acceptance as authentic sources of information. A total revamp of IS built in the last twenty years. It will include forecasting, modeling etc.
Synergy
Period 3: 2015-20
Global Acceptance
Period 4: 2020-25
Integration
Need For IT & Information System in Railways
Transportation Industries such as Railways operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment. This requires a continuous update of information about current status and location of these assets. The optimum utilization of material resources, which they deploy, would require collection and collation of accurate data on their current utilization and an inventive analysis of the information collected. Information Resource is a critical managerial tool for confronting and tackling the business challenges on a real time basis. Transportation i n dus t ri es are als o service industries and they thrive and flourish on Information - rich soil that provides them the vitally needed link to their customers and other major stakeholders. Railways being multi-locational, multi-functional and multi-divisional organization provide an ideal backdrop for Computer Networks, which can allow sharing of resources across the Corporation and information with their customers.
Railway Industry, being an age-old industry, finds many of its existing business and operational practices inadequate for adjusting in the current fast changing business environment. Unless, Railways also develop capabilities to harness information resources through the use of exploding information technology, as other industries are doing, its continued presence as a viable industry in future may become a question mark. On the contrary, if the railway system can exploit Information Technology to modernize their operations and practices to suit the needs of their customers, they can gain tremendous competitive advantage in the present and future business environment.
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Earlier Developments Realizing the important role that i n form ati o n plays in Railways operations, IR had embarked on its Computerization Program, earlier than many other organizations in the country. Towards the end of 60's, two positive developments took place in Indian Railways. Firstly, even though, computerization was perceived by many as a labor saving measure, IR could realize its potential advantage and the plan to progressively computerize Railways was accepted in principle by Management and the Labor Unions. Secondly, a dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a basic requirement for train operation, even though the future development of the merger of computers and communication to give birth to Information Technology was not actually visualized at that time. After the early introduction of regular flavor computer applications such as Pay rolls, Inventory control and Operating statistics, Railways were poised in the mid 70's for deployment of computers for productivity improvement through building up operational databases. However, certain administrative issues and political development came in the way of bringing about any further developments in the field of computerization. The period between mid 70's to early 80's were however utilized by IR to develop a blue print for further computerization. During the beginning of the 80's IR decided on
Computerization of the Passenger Reservation Arrangement. Developing a Freight Operations Information System.
Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways and Production Units with the State-of-the-art Computer systems e n a b l i n g t h e organization t o computerize more applications and increasing the volume of users.
Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Workshops, Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes. Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
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Computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS)
Out of the total passengers carried by IR, inter-city passengers constitute a mere 9% of the total volume. But, this small proportion, out of the total, generated 176 billion passenger-km out of a total of 341 billion passenger-km, about 52% of the total. They also bring in a revenue of Rs. 42.9 billion in a total passenger revenue of Rs. 60 billion, constituting roughly 72% of the total. It is a matter of comfort for IR that this market segment is a well-patronized one and in order to meet the situation of demand over running supply, the customers have been provided with the facility of making their reservation on these trains, 30 days in advance. The seats/berths reservation system on trains is a fairly complex activity, not only because of volume involving more than 600,000 seats/berths reservations per day, but also because of seven different categories of trains operating, using 72 types of coaches with seven classes of reservation, more than 40 types of quotas and more than 80 kinds of concessional tickets. The method of calculation of fare is also quite complex as charges are based on the distance, comfort level provided and the transit time. Because of this complexity and sheer volume involved, IR undertook management of Reservation work through computers. A pilot project consisting of a few popular trains implemented at New Delhi in November 1985 came out successful and was well received by the customers. By May 1987, the entire New Delhi Reservation Load was computerized. The stand-alone VAX Computer Systems were further implemented at remaining three metropolitan cities, namely, Mumbai (June '87), Calcutta (July '87) and Chennai (October '87) and they account for over 40% of reservation volume. The last stand-alone Cyber Computer System was implemented at Secunderabad (July '89), which was subsequently replaced by VAX computer system (Jan '95). Many other stations having advance reservation arrangements were connected as remote terminals to the existing five computer systems for accessing the entire database of the host computer. In the computerized system, IR decided that technical and service considerations would be used to determine the host to which a station would be linked up. To improve the service levels further, by providing better access to customers, remote terminals from the host computers are also being provided at satellite locations in the Metropolitan cities. In some major cities, satellite terminals from five host computer systems were also provided, thus allowing customers access to reservation databases residing there.
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Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS)
The Passenger Reservation System Software is given the name Integrated Multi-train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS) and consists of roughly 2,700 Sub routines. Developed through 30 man years of programming effort in the language of FORTRAN, the software functions as an integrated system of four main modules, which handle the functional requirements of Reservation, Enquiry, Accounting and Charting. The system has full scale back up and recovery facilities. The entire computerized PRS system, thus, functions as five stand-alone systems. The stand-alone architecture does not allow reservation at a terminal from databases in two different host computers. The provision of remote terminals at major stations from more than one host computer partially takes care of this, though the customer has to stand in two or more queues. IR now plans to inter-link the five host computers using networking software and distributed transaction processing. This will provide access to databases in all the five host computers at any terminal in the country. The entire system can then cover almost all reservation quotas on IR, with the databases distributed over five computer locations, providing reservation access all over the country. As a first major step towards the goal of single image passenger reservation system, the first prototype of PRS Networking Software.
? PRS networking of entire Indian Railways completed in April, 1999. ? PRS is running currently at 1,200 locations, Deploying 4,000 terminals, covering journeys of 3,000 trains and executing ONE MILLION passenger transactions per day. ? Internet booking of tickets was started In August 2002. ? TATKAL has been converted from a separate coach to a normal Quota and enabled for all trains in 2004 ? Internet booking timings extended to 4:00 a.m. – 11:30 p.m. from March 2005 .
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CONCERT (Countrywide Network of Computerized E n h a n c e d Reservation)
CONCERT using F O R T R A N ( 30%) and C (70%) languages was implemented at Secunderabad in January '95. CONCERT is written, keeping in mind the Client-Server architecture of Computer System to achieve easy hardware expansion ability in future. Its message routing feature for WAN (Wide Area Network) implementation is achieved through R T R s o f t w a r e and Router h a r d w a re , connected directly to an Ethernet backbone. As a first phase of CONCERT implementation, the IMPRESS software version at the two stand-alone PRS systems at Secunderabad and New Delhi has been replaced with CONCERT and work is in progress for networking these two systems, using 64 kbps channels. The network application modules, once successfully completed, are expected to get extended to PRS at Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. After the full- scale implementation, the requirement of communication channels will come down, as there will be no need for extending circuits for connecting remote terminals to particular PRS location only, in view of every terminal Indian Railways IT becoming universal. CONCERT will also add multiple lap functionality resulting in better customer service.
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Freight Operations Information System (FOIS)
The market share of IR in the total freight traffic carried in the country has been declining in the last 20 years mainly due to the inability of IR to carry all the traffic offered to it. This inability arises from the fact that the railways have been consistently facing severe shortage of Rolling Stock for carrying all traffic and serious constraints in line capacity for moving the traffic. While considerable inputs are needed for augmenting the capacity of rolling stock as well as line capacity, th e optim um utilization of existing resources i s considered
more imperative for carrying additional volume of traffic. It is of common knowledge that railway systems all over the world have profitably used computerization for improving the utilization of rolling stock assets of their systems.
Realizing the significant contribution that computerization can make in improving the utilization of rolling stock assets, Indian Railways have been planning from the early stages for the introduction of use of computers in the freight operations. In the early 70's the advance transmission of consisting from marshalling yard to marshalling yard was attempted but the inherent limitations of the hardware available at that time and the nonavailability of reliable communication lines thwarted the early attempts. The administrative issues and political developments which were responsible for stagnancy in the area of computerization during late 70's also played a major part in delaying further introduction of computers in freight operations. Ultimately, Indian Railways decided in 1986 to go in for an integrated computer communication system called Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) with an objective to computerize the information relating to al l operational activities and monitor the performance of all activity centers connected with freight traffic management. 9| P a g e
FOIS will maintain data banks of all fixed and rolling stock assets of the IR with their characteristic features, to help proper evaluation and optimization of their use. All the data will be captured dynamically, as an event is happening. Such data banks will be used to improve the quality of decision making and for producing management information. Reports on all aspects of freight operations, without the need to collect past data, every time. For this, FOIS will have many sub-systems for handling individual activities. It was anticipated that t he introduction of FOIS would bring about a minimum of 10% improvement in Wagon utilization and 5% improvement in Locomotive utilization. The FOIS architecture is two tier, with a central system at Railway Board level, processing all identified core functions relating to moving assets and Zonal Systems at 5 locations processing all local functions carried out at Activity Reporting Centers such as Goods Sheds and Sidings, Transshipment Points, Yards, Stations, Interchange
Points, Wagon Repair Depots, Locomotive Sheds, Fuelling Points, Crew Changing Points, Carriage & Wagon Workshops, Locomotive Workshops etc. While the central computer system is located in New Delhi, the five Zonal Computer Systems are located at New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Secunderabad. For implementing FOIS, aft er surveying the similar technologies available in world railways, it was decided to import software from Canadian National Railroad for the data processing at the central computer. This software called TRACS (Traffic Reporting and Control System) ran on IBM compatible machines and had been implemented earlier in Southern Pacific Railroad, Canadian National Railroad and British Rail. The Central System handles the core functions like control of wagon movement, control of train movement, locomotive movement, scheduling and routing of traffic, empty wagon distribution, container traffic, safety management, marketing applications, total system performance statistics, corporate planning etc. The Zonal Systems handle distributed field functions like yard management, local area management (inclusive of Goods sheds, Transhipment sheds, Invoice preparation and invoicing), maintenance and repairs of wagons and locomotives, crew management, fuel management, safety management, statistical (query based, scheduled, off-line and message) reports, accounting, billing, costing and apportioning of revenue among the Zonal Railways etc. The assessment of the cost of FOIS Project has ranged from Rs.2.1 billion (1979) to Rs.5 billion (1982), to Rs.17 billion (1986). The cost has since been revised down to Rs.11 billion in 1988, at 198 6 prices. The major reason for cost fl u ct u at i ons were the Uncertainty over creation of supporting communication infrastructure to cater the need of reliable and speedy computer communication across the length and breadth of IR, spanning all over India.
Rake Management System
The Rake Management System (RMS) is a set of utilities and tools designed for analysis and decision making to do with the overall use of physical train units (rakes), their deployment, maintenance and cycles for suburban train services. The RMS also provides other useful information like occupancy profiles of trains at terminals, platforms and sidings and is therefore useful in other activities in operations planning, such as time-tabling, maintenance planning and crew scheduling.
The RMS consists of the following parts: Post-processing: It summarizes the information about stabling lines movements, car-sheds movements in accordance with the availability of stabling lines and also optimizes the total distance run by the rake in these activities Rostering: After the daily optimization of total number of rakes used to run all the services in the timetable and total distance run by them, rostering is used in assignment of rakes to the starting services of the day so that average weekly distance is covered by each rake and each rake is assigned to weekly maintenance activity during some day in the week. So it is the total overall weekly optimization of the uses of rakes in conjunction with Rake-Linker and Post-processing. Occupancies: After the rake cycles, stabling and car-sheds movements are generated by Rake Linker and Post-processing, it generates the occupancy profiles of the rakes at every station and track with platform and track preferences which is further used in checking the feasibility of the platforms and tracks availability and feasible assignment (done by a Platform Allocation algorithm). If all the occupancies are feasible then it generates the final assignment of the platform and tracks to every service and these are then charted in a visually convenient form. Perturbation and sensitivity analysis: After the rake cycles are obtained from Rake Linker, its goal is to find out some critical services if any so that by modifying some parameter values for these services, a rake or an empty run of a rake can be saved. This can be run in more than one step in order to minimize number of rakes or minimize the total cost of the network The parameters which are considered for modification are turn-around time at the terminus, running time of the service, preponement/postponement of the timings. Crew Scheduling: After the Rake Table is obtained from Rake Linker, it assigns the crews to the rakes in accordance with several crew constraints. Maintenance Activities: There are many different types of maintenance activities of the rakes like weekly maintenance, biweekly maintenance, mid-life rehabilitation, end-life rehabilitation etc. The RMS is therefore an attempt at providing a comprehensive set of tools for exercise of rake deployment for services, and maintenance. At the moment, efforts are underway to implement incremental parts of the system on the suburban system in Central Railway and Western Railway in Mumbai.
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Parcel / Integrated Coach Management System
Railway Board Sanctioned 2Crore rupees for Pilot Parcel Management System between 7 stations. PMS started at New Delhi Parcel Office on 1st November 2006. Direct capture of parcel weight electronically. Universal Windows for all destinations for booking. Single Window for weightment and cash payment possible. Advance Uploading Guidance about inward parcel from the system at destination.Tracking Parcel with the help of Bar Code Technology. Parcels is loaded after Bar Code Scanning and loading summary is recorded.
Millions of passengers book their journeys everyday with the confidence that when their train rolls up on the appointed day, it would bring a coach which has place for them. To meet this expectation day in day out, Indian Railways need to track over 50 thousand coaches. By efficiently deploying the fleet, railways are able to run more services for the benefit of their passengers, while minimizing any chances of disruption and disappointment. IR also must ensure that these assets receive timely servicing and maintenance. Depending upon the need, the system can deliver historical records from past years in printed reports, or up-to-the-minute information on an official’s cell phone. Coaching Stock Module is the second vital phase of Integrated Coaching Management System. There has been substantial growth of passenger traffic on Indian Railways in the last few years and in the number of coaches for the different types like vacuum and air brake, Ac 1st class, 2-tier, 3-tier, chair car, and Non-A/C, Sleeper Coaches, Day Coaches, Pantry Cars and Brake Vans etc.
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Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS)
In 1986, the Ministry of Railways established CRIS to be an umbrella for all computer activities on Indian Railways. They also entrusted it with the task of design, development and implementation of FOIS, along with its associated communications infrastructure. The Center started functioning from July 1987. It is an autonomous organization headed by the Managing Director. CRIS is mainly a project-oriented organization engaged in development of major computer systems on the Railways. CRIS has acquired special knowledge and expertise in the field of informatics. With such a rich practical experience, a dedicated team of professionals and its own R&D effort, CRIS aims to be a leader in this fast developing field.
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Need For CRIS
A separate organization was considered better suited to take up all computer activities on IR mainly for the following reasons: To avoid duplication of efforts by individual Railways. To ensure standardization of computer hardware and software on the Railways. To undertake design and development of major applications on Railways
requiring higher levels of expertise, faster decision making and system wide applicability. To insulate the organization from day to day working of the Railways so that its objectives are not lost sight of. Need for a combined effort of Railways and Computer Specialists, considered best suited for the development of the computer applications on Railways. Need for development of expertise in highly specialized fields like Operation Research, Simulation, Expert System, CAD/CAM, Process Control etc. Need for greater flexibility to keep pace with the fast changing technology.
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RAILNET
RAILNET has the potential for transfer of messages, files, e-mails between the important locations on Indian Railways. In addition, the internal web site in Railway Board and Zonal Railways Headquarters supports codes, manual procedure orders, policy directives and other i m p o r t a n t information for day-do-day use b y various officials.
Detailed estimate amounting to Rs.7.81 crore for the work of RAILNET was sanctioned in Nov 98 by the Railway Board .The structure of RAILNET is as under.
RAILNET will provide computer c o n n e c t i v i t y between R ai l wa y Board a n d Zon al Railways, Production Units, Centralized Training Institutes, MTP/Calcutta & 46 Major Training Institutes. 15 | P a g e RDSO, CORE,
Different Phases of Rail Net
The contract for Phase-I was awarded to M/s Tata Infotech Limited. The scope of work included Supply,Installation,Testing and Commissioning of Servers, Routers,Centralized Switches, Modems etc. including Internet/Intranet software. The work has been completed except for NFR, DLW and DCW because of non-availability of site/connectivity.
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Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited
Introduction
Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited (Rail Tel ) an ISO-9001:2000 organization is a Government of India undertaking under the Ministry of Railways. The Corporation was formed in Sept 2000 with the objectives to create nation wide Broadband Telecom and Multimedia Network in all parts of the country, to modernize Train Control Operation and Safety System of Indian Railways and to significantly contribute to realization of goals and objective of national telecom policy 1999. RailTel is a wholly owned subsidiary of Indian Railways. RailTel is building state of the art multimedia telecom network using SDH/DWDM based transmission systems and high end MPLS-IP routers. RailTel has extensive expertise in building telecom networks. Moreover, RailTel draws its manpower from signal and telecom branch of Indian Railway which has been in the business of construction, operation and maintenance of telecom systems for more than 50 years.
Railways have various communication needs. It is very important for railways to have a reliable communication system since it is essential for efficient and safe operations of trains. As such, formation of Broadband Telecom and Multimedia Corporation was considered by Ministry of Railways. The Corporation registered as Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited was incorporated in September 2000. 18 | P a g e
Communication Requirements for Railways
Railways have various communication requirements as follows:
1. The primary requirement is for control and block communication. Control
communication is required for monitoring from central control office; the running of trains on a section of 200 to 300 Km. The central control office is connected to all the stations. Block communication is necessary for safe movement of trains from one station to the next.
2. Administrative communication requirements that include:
Connecting divisional headquarters with important stations Connecting Zonal headquarters with the divisions Connecting Railway Board with Zones Emergency communication for crew of disabled train to talk to section controllers
3. Use of communication channels for data transmission for:
Passenger Reservation System Freight Operation Information System Management Information System Passenger Information System
Objectives of Rail Tel
Following are the main objectives of Rail Tel Corporation.
1. To modernize railways train control, operational and safety systems and networks. 2. To create a nationwide broadband telecom and multimedia network to supplement
national telecom infrastructure to spur growth of telecom internet and IT enabled value services in all parts of the country specially rural, remote and backward areas.
3. To g e n e r a t e the revenues needed for implementing Railway’ developmental s
projects, safety enhancement and asset replacement programs.
4. To significantly contribute to realization of goals and objectives of National
Telecom Policy, 1999.
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Today’s Challenges Faced by Railways
The Large Geographical Dispersion of our country is the biggest challenge for Indian Railways. To get all of the country connected via railways is very challenging indeed. There are so many states and so many stations providing so many applications and platforms to work on. The diversification of these computing platforms is yet another challenge for Indian Railways, to connect the whole of country with railways and railways with IT is very challenging. Also the remote areas provide lot of problems in integrating and to take the technology to such remote areas is very difficult job. Yet another challenge standing besides Railways is 24*7 operations throughout the year. Even if one entry goes wrong the whole of network will suffer. Also the OLTP applications support public services is another challenge for the Indian railways.
INDIAN RAILWAY ENTERPRISE COMPUTING
SYSTEMS
INTEGRATION ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT CRM OPERATIONS MAINTENANCE BUSINESS SUPPORT SYSTEMS DATA PROCESSING SYSTEMS DATA CAPTURE
TERMINALS,FIXED, HAND-HELD
APPLICATIONS
ENTERPRISE RESOURCE PLANNING
Strategic Enterprise Management Market Research FOIS Engineering Planning Human Resources Management Business Intelligence and Data Warehousing PRS Crew Scheduling Rolling Stock Maintenance Procurement and Contract Management Managerial Accounting Call Centre Station Management Inventory Management Cash Flow Management INDIAN RAILWAY PORTAL
Financial Accounting Customer Data Base PARCEL MANAGEMENT Infrastructure Maintenance Real Estate Management
Regulatory Reporting
Customer Service Train Planning Asset Life Cycle Management Litigation Management
CONTROL OFFICE APPLICATIONS
PDAS
MOBILE PHONES
DATA LOGGERS SCADA SYSTEMS
? ? ? ? ? ? ?
Higher demand for Freight and Passenger transport, with planned economic growth Need for capacity enhancement in the Railway network over the next 10-15 years Technological uprgadation for better maintenance of railway assets Greater competition from Roadways, with major investments in Highway network upgradation Increase freight market share through higher availability of services at competitive prices Greater attention to passenger services and safety Upgradation of the Railway Production units for improved efficiency and productivity
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Railway-IS Interface around the Globe
The study of railway-IT interface in developed and undeveloped countries has great implications for the Indian railway industry. The knowledge about use of information technology in railway operations around the globe would help us improve our rail transportation and would enhance prompt commodity movements. Thus there is a great need to enhance and put into effect such information technology, adding that cooperation in unifying different national railway systems would be a valuable advance for the globalisation and liberalization processes. Three different systems have been studied here and they have very interesting applications that could be used in the Indian context.
South and East Africa
About the use of information technology in railway operations in South and East Africa, the Deputy Managing Director of TRANSNET, says the national railway operator of South Africa, SPOORNET, has developed a rail computer network from which all the countries of the region were benefiting. The southern railways operate a common rail system based on the "Cape gauge". About eleven southern and eastern African countries were linked and long-term strategies for those railways are in major flux, due to plans for restructuring, commercialisation, and privatisation. The boom in mining in Tanzania and Congo, economic growth in Kenya, Uganda and Mozambique, and increased global trade through the Indian Ocean have resulted in large volumes of rail-friendly traffic to and from inland destinations where road transport was often not viable. There are rail strategies aimed at providing reliable, cost-effective means of gaining a share of that traffic. Intermodal operation through alliances with road carriers to provide door-to-door service is also being pursued. Of late, there has been consensus that railways would not survive if they continued to take for granted their previous privileged status as national carriers. Diagnosis of the long-term future of the transport industry worldwide had indicated a slow but steady decline in the types of commodities, which had traditionally sustained railways. Effective responses to this included aggressive cost reduction, extending reach to value-added services beyond the railhead, and penetration of growing markets for intermodal higher-value finished goods, with alliances playing a key role.
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Thus was proposed the introduction of a computer-network rail tracking technology system, in which an expeditor could trace the destination and full information on any merchandise until delivery. Such hour-by-hour inspection of commercial containers would enable exporters to assure the security of their merchandise and guarantee its prompt arrival. Likewise, the network was beneficial for goods transported by ships and transferred to rail or road carriers . The necessity of creating intermodal systems and the cost pressure behind the trend would require more rational rail transportation and transhipment. Intermodal systems need electronic media, globalisation of economic rules and information, and the removal of customs barriers. Rail transportation had been improved thanks to high technology introduced by such companies as Siemens and TSS. Such firms had built integrated systems providing solutions for locomotive transport and satellite guiding systems. New regulations by States had also promoted the creation and adoption of new technology.
East Japan Railway Company (JR East)
The utilization of Information System for innovations in railway operations and improvements in customer service has been one of the main driving forces behind the establishment of computer systems at JR East. In July 1987, under the direction of the company's first president, Mr. Yamashita, the "Office Automation Promotion'' project was launched and work for the establishment of a "Integrated Management Information System'' was begun. Operation of the three main systems, "Station based Point of Sales System'', "Expense Management System'', and "Integrated Railway Operation System'' started in 1989 - 90.
The scale of JR East computer systems has increased by leaps and bounds ever since. During the 10 years since its establishment, the company has rapidly developed computer systems for business management. With the computer system supporting the administration of the company topping the list, computers at present are utilized in various sections, including general affairs and accounting, business operations, transportation and facilities related areas and related businesses. The large scale of the
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company's overall computer system becomes apparent when expressed numerically. The total system comprises 29 host computers, 16,000 terminals, approximately 70 megasteps of software, and approximately 2 terabytes of files.
To give a brief overall outline of computer systems at JR East, the computers in operation at JR East can be categorized by system into the following three groups:
1. Train operation related systems: Systems in this category are employed for the daily operation of trains, and for the operation and maintenance of facilities along railway routes. In these systems the train operation transmitting operation schedules to the respective sites, as well as for the daily management of transport operations, the operation of trains, the supervision of operation staff and for other transportation service related tasks. In other words, the overall system is constructed with the railway operation schedule database at the center of all transportation-planning operations. In addition, all data pertaining to the tracks and the facilities along the railway routes, including electric power facilities, signals and communication facilities, are compiled into a database and used by maintenance personnel for management of facilities during daily inspections and repair work. A command system capable of such functions as sending out alarms during emergencies and supporting recovery work in case of accidents has also been set up, to be used by the facilities supervisory personnel who control facilities management operations from the centre.
2. Customer related systems: The second category comprises computer systems employed in areas within the railway business and related businesses, which involve dealing with customers. These systems, in which customer related information is compiled into databases, are utilized in carrying out business related operations such as the introduction and sale of travel related products and services, introduction of the various projects connected with the "View card'', business credit card issued by the company, the sale of commuting tickets to business customers, and so on.
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The system also makes possible the management and calculation of revenues, on a per day basis, by adding the total amount of sales proceeds from all the stations in JR East area as put together by the Station based POS (Point of Sales) System and the total amount of income from the sales of various types of reserved tickets, compiled by MARS (Multiple Access Reservation System). It also enables the enterprise to settle accounts with other companies on a daily basis and calculate the company's net earnings. It is expected that marketing tactics, using the above mentioned customer information database, will play an important role in the future, as the company pursues its various strategic business policies.
3. Business operation related systems: The last of the three categories comprises systems, which support the planning of management strategies and decision-making processes, directly tied to the administration of the company. The overall system comprises a management related database containing information considered necessary for the management of the company, extracted from the two above databases. In addition to providing company executives with the information necessary to run the company, the system also provides each of the departments in the headquarters and the branch offices with the various data necessary for carrying out office business. Systems in this category include the executive data management system which stores data pertaining to executive meetings, a system for tracking expenditures by the various sections of the company, a database capable of constantly providing information in areas such as the company's current status of earnings, the number of passengers getting on and off trains, and so on. In addition, there is also an office based computer network providing offices with e-mail services, bulletin boards, as well as the means to reserve meeting rooms and carry out other daily tasks.
To outline a few examples of Systems in Operation, we have the following (i) COSMOS (Computerized Safety, Maintenance and Operation Systems of Shinkansen) In this system computers are employed to assist in a series of Shinkansen related tasks, such as Shinkansen operation planning, operation, supervision, management of facilities, and control of electric power systems.
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(ii) Green Information System The system compiles a database from information pertaining to needs and opinions expressed by customers, obtained from such sources as stations and newspapers. The information is made available at all times, through computer terminals at the company headquarters and other locations, and is utilized and reflected in improvements made to station facilities, train accommodations, and in the way the staff deal with customers, as well as in making improvements in the planning of transportation and other services and operations.
(iii) Travel Operations Related System The System enables JR East to carry out its travel related business operations in the same manner as large travel agencies. The system is utilized for the registration and sale of travel related products and services, for making reservations and automatically providing related facilities with reservation information as well as for supervising the selection of products and services offered, retrieving various types of information and so on. Currently a database containing customer related information is being compiled, and the system is undergoing downsizing and other improvements, which include fitting the system with the latest model terminals.
(iv) Card System The system supports operations related to "View Card'', the credit card offered by JR East. It is used for issuing the cards, settling accounts, analysing the status of card related business operations and managing customer information, as well as for the retrieval of various kinds of data.
(v) Facilities Management System By compiling data related to facilities along the railway into a database and enabling the use of the information during daily inspections and repair work, the system helps make facilities maintenance work more efficient.5. Future Plans for the Systems
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Future Trends in IT In Indian Railways
In what could be a first for the Indian Railways, a high-speed corridor for long distance passenger trains has been proposed between Mumbai and Ahmedabad. An announcement to this effect is likely to be made on March 14 by Railway Minister Dinesh Trivedi. The 500-km long Mumbai-Ahmedabad route, which currently takes seven hours on the fastest train the Mumbai-Ahmedabad Duronto Express, is lined up for the introduction of bullet trains.
Initially trains will run at 200 km/h, but gradually, after significant improvements and upgradation of crucial signalling and telecommunication systems, the trains will run at speeds in excess of 350 km/h," said a senior railway official, on condition of anonymity. This would drastically bring down the travel time of passengers frequenting these two vital and financially strong cities, bringing the travel time down to a mere 4 hours. Railway authorities claim that this corridor would be the much-needed fillip for Indian Railways, and have estimated the high-speed line to cost Rs 60,000 crore. Ticketing Solutions (Centralized, Stand-alone, Mobile, Smart Card, Self Service, Internet etc.); value added services to customer On line and e-enabled Freight Management System /Integrated revenue accountable system. Train Charting and Control Systems /RFID based Wagon/Parcel Tracking Systems. Integration of Railway Systems with Railway Station Systems /Safety Systems (GPS, Embedded Systems). GIS based Track Maintenance Systems/ Integrated Materials Management System / Fixed assets mgmt. 26 | P a g e
Bibliography
Articles “Management Information System”, James A O’Brien,George M Marakas & Ramesh Behl. “ IT Applications On Indian Rail Network”, M.R. Ramakrishna & Ajaykumar A. Bhatt. Reports
Project Report of Rail Tel Corporation of India Limited by Ministry of Railways
Websiteshttp://www.google.co.inhttp://www.indianrail.gov.inhttp://www.irctc.co.inhttp://www.wikipedia.orghttp://www.webopedia.orghttp://www.railtelindia.comhttp://www.trainweb.org/railnethttp://www.railnet.orghttp://www.akgim.edu.inhttp://www.indianrailways.gov.inhttp://www.pib.nic.in
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doc_758413706.doc