Source:https://www.financialexpress.com/infrastructure/railways/indian-railways-installs-isro-developed-rtis-system-for-real-time-train-tracking-check-what-is-rtis-and-how-does-it-work/2691247/
Publisher: Financial Express
Developed in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), Real Time Train Information System (RTIS) is being installed on the trains for automatic acquisition of its “movement timing at the stations, including that of arrival and departure or run-through”, the Ministry of Railways said. “They get automatically plotted on the control chart of those trains in the Control Office Application (COA) system,” the Ministry added.
How does it work?
According to the Ministry, RTIS gives mid-section updates with a periodicity of 30 seconds. The Train Control can track the location and speed of RTIS enabled trains more closely, without any manual intervention. The RTIS uses information from GSAT satellites that have GAGAN payloads for tracking the movement of trains and sends the information down to the Central Location Server (CLS) of Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).
The same information is passed on using enterprise service BUS in CRIS’ data centre to the National Train Enquiry System (NTES). From there on, NTES feeds that information to all the public information dissemination systems be it websites, mobile apps, the 139 railway helpline number, or any other medium.
2,700 trains covered so far
“RTIS devices have been installed for 2,700 locomotives in 21 electric loco sheds. As part of Phase-II roll out, 6,000 more locomotives across 50 loco sheds shall be covered by utilising ISRO’s Satcom hub,” the Ministry said in a statement. “Currently, GPS feed from around 6,500 Locomotives (RTIS and REMMLOT) is being directly fed into the Control Office Application (COA). This has enabled automatic charting of trains and real time information flow to passengers through COA and NTES integration,” the statement further read.
Meanwhile, according to an ANI report, the newly launched Chatbot of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) is getting remarkable response from the train passengers. During the beta launch, over 1 billion people have used it, a senior official told ANI.
