Microsoft to improve efficiency of Indian Railways

  “……Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the umbrella organization for all computer activities on Indian Railways, along with Microsoft, has come out with a unique system for effectively monitoring the movement of trains operated by the Indian Railways.

Built on Windows Vista, the Control Office application (COA) will ensure that the 17 million passengers who travel by the Indian Railways every day and users of its freight services will get real time information on the exact location and arrival and departure times of all trains on their phones.

“We have completed the integration of COA with our interactive voice response system and our website in the 26 control rooms it has been deployed so far,” said the spokesperson of CRIS.

 The control office is like a call centre for each division of the railways, into which information pours in from every station in that division about arrival and departure of every train passing them by. Currently, the rail traffic controllers at each control office plot that information on a manual chart, then make decisions about movement of trains and make forecasts about arrivals and departures.

Once COA is deployed, the computer will take care of plotting and drawing the train path, leaving the controller more time to make faster decisions about the best possible route for a train, thereby reducing delays, improving forecasts (less than a second from 20 seconds earlier) and revenues, from the same assets.

And as this will get fed into passenger information systems like the IVRS and railways’ website, railway users will get more accurate and up-to-date information on running of trains. It will allow passengers to plan their travel better, while companies will be able to improve their logistics management. It will also enable the controller to better manage the conflicts, like, if two trains are on the same track, which one should be allowed to move first.

Improvement in decisions and the in-built monitoring alert will help avoid accidents, enhancing safety as well……….”

Full story at Source:MS to improve efficiency of Indian Railways