Indian Railways to launch 20 in-house innovations including natural water coolers, contact-less ticketing

Railway Board has decided to implement a total of 20 innovations by its employees.

Indian Railways all set to launch 20 in-house innovations! To make train journeys safer and more comfortable for passengers, the Railway Board has decided to implement a total of 20 innovations by its employees like printing of unreserved tickets through mobile apps, bell warning before a train departs, real-time CCTV monitoring inside coaches – on a mass scale, according to a PTI report. In 2018, a dedicated portal was launched by the national transporter to solicit the good ideas attempted by its employees across the zonal railways, with an aim to implement some of them across the Indian Railways network. Since then, the zones of Indian Railways have uploaded their entries on the web portal.

The portal received as many as 2,645 entries from September 2018 to December 2019, out of which, the Railway Board has selected 20 for initial mass scale implementation across the rail network. According to an official, all zonal General Managers and Production Units have been directed to gear up for the implementation of these ideas. It is being said that most of these innovations are aimed at technical improvements in order to boost safety.

1. A vehicular system has been developed by the North Central Railway zone for ultrasonic flaw detection of rails, which is done manually at present.

2. The Eastern Railway zone’s Malda Division has used pyrometers to monitor speed as well as the temperature of railway tracks.

3. A detector has been developed by the carriage and wagon department of North Central Railways’ Allahabad Division for hot axle box in operating train services much before a possible derailment because of seizure. Interestingly, some of these innovations are directed at passenger comfort as well.

4. Natural water coolers have been developed by the Western Railway zone, with zero electric consumption. Each of these coolers cost Rs 1.25 lakh and have a lifespan of 10 years. The natural water cooler system works on heat transfer principle where water is passed through copper coils that are covered with cooling fabric active through a system of water dripping. These natural water coolers have been installed at Dahanu Road, Bandra, Nandurbar, Borivali and Udhana stations.

5. The Allahabad Division has developed a bell system. It alerts railway passengers at station platforms that the train is ready for departure within two minutes. The system is already in use in Allahabad Junction’s platform number one.

6. One of the innovations includes a system to monitor real-time CCTV footage on board trains. While the Humsafar train coaches have the facility of CCTV surveillance, the footages are not monitored in real-time. A system has been developed by NCR for real-time monitoring inside trains. It has also installed the system in all 18 coaches of Humsafar Express trains. In the guard’s compartment, the CCTV display unit is provided and the videos can be recorded for later viewing. It is aimed at the immediate resolution of crimes on board trains.

7. Another innovation the national transporter is looking at is air quality monitoring equipment developed by the NCR zone. The system has been installed at Allahabad station.

8. With the ongoing COVID-19 outbreak encouraging people/passengers to go contact-less, a system has been developed by Indian Railways’ Northern Railway zone. Through this system, unreserved tickets are issued through mobile applications and bluetooth printers.

The report further stated that this pilot project has helped the national transporter to open online UTS ticketing counters at railway stations, tent cities, platforms as well as passenger holding areas with uninterrupted power supply and without UTS connectivity as these devices work on SIM cards and lithium-ion batteries. All the zonal railways have been directed by the Railway Board to furnish implementation reports of these 20 in-house innovations within the next three months, the report added.