Adopting space technology ISRO will help ‘alert’ people at unmanned level railway crossings

New Delhi, November 13: Indian Space Research Organization collaborated with Ministry of Railways to help save lives of people who die due to unmanned level railway crossings. With the help of space technology, ISRO will warn road users through ‘hooters’ once a train approaches an unmanned level crossing. 

How will the technology work?

Railways will soon install ISRO-developed integrated circuit (IC) chips on 10,000 locomotives of trains. About 500 metres before the level crossings, then the satellite-based system will alert road users at unmanned level crossings about approaching trains and also help in tracking train movement on a real-time basis.The hooter will become louder as the level crossing nears, and will fall silent after the train has passed. Besides alerting road users, the satellite-based system will also be used for tracking trains for disseminating information about their movement on a real-time basis.

On a pilot basis, two-level crossing gates in Sonepur division on the Delhi-Guwahati Rajdhani route are to be equipped with the ISRO system, to be followed by a few gates on the Delhi-Mumbai route shortly, according to sources.

At present, train movement-related information is maintained manually, leaving scope for inaccuracies. There are about 7,254 unmanned railway crossings in the country which account for around 40 per cent of accidents involving the railways. There are about 18,000 manned level crossings.

Though India’s death toll from train derailments in 2016-17 is now the highest in a decade; 193 People died in accidents despite a sharp dip in trains mishaps, according to the report carried out by IndiaSpend. Nearly 53% of the 586 train accidents in the last five years were due to derailments with the Utkal Express derailment being the latest.