Source: https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/railways-introduces-indigenous-anti-collision-system/articleshow/90004701.cms
Publisher: TOI
NEW DELHI: The Indian Railways conducted a live demonstration of Kavach, an automatic anti-collision system, for trains near Secunderabad with both railway minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and railway board chairman V K Tripthi on board in two locomotives coming from opposite directions on the same track. But both the locos stopped automatically at 380-metre distance from each other and avoided a collision because of this new technology.
The Indian Railways aims to achieve “zero accidents” by deploying the anti-collision and Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system. Officials said Kavach will soon be deployed on Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Kolkata corridors, which are being upgraded to allow trains to run at 160 kmph.
As of now, the Kavach has been deployed on nearly 1,200 km of railway track and in the next two months, another 264 kms will be covered.
Kavach is a set of electronic devices, GPS and RFIDs tags which are in locomotives, signalling systems and tracks. Using the high radio frequencies, these devices talk to each other and the programmed system initiates action without any human intervention.
The locos fitted with Kavach will automatically stop if the system detects any manual error by the pilot or any other malfunction such as inadvertently jumping the red signal. The system is designed in a manner to ensure that it brings the train to a halt automatically if Kavach notices another train on the same track.
“If we bring such a technology from Europe it will cost between Rs 1.5 crore and Rs 2 crore per km to operate while ‘Kavach’ will cost between Rs 40 lakh to Rs 50 lakh per km and is a step ahead when compared to the technology offered by other similar systems,” Vaishnaw said. He had told TOI recently that if this can be deployed across 7,000-8,000 km of the railway network, then the product can also be exported to other countries.
The current avataar of Kavach adheres to the highest level of safety and reliability standard called Safety Integrity Level 4, the railway ministry said.
How effective the system is evident from a video released by the railway ministry which showed that the pilot could not drive the train as the Kavach applied automatic brakes to avoid any head-on collision. In another video, the locomotive transporting Vaishnaw came to a halt automatically as it approached a red signal to avoid any untoward incident.
The government started the process for developing India’s own ATP in 2012 under the name Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) and test trials started in 2014.
