Northeast Frontier Railway, RailTel Corporation sign MoU to avert train-elephant collisions

Guwahati (Assam) [India], March 20 : Northeast Frontier Railway (NF Railway) on Monday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with RailTel Corporation of India Ltd, for the installation of an Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to avert train-elephant collisions and disaster mitigation measures.

NF Railway has been taking many initiatives to prevent and detect the movement of wild mals, especially elephants, approaching the tracks.

Installation of IDS in important sections is one such of them.

The MoU was signed by GR Das, Chief Communication Engineer, NF Railway and Zakir Siddiqui, Executive Director/Eastern Region/Railtel in presence of Anshul Gupta, General Manager of NF Railway and Sanjay Kumar, Chief Managing Director/RailTel Corporation of India Ltd.

After 100 per cent success of the pilot project on IDS that was undertaken by NF Railway in the Chalsa - Hasimara section of the Dooars area under the Alipurduar Division in West Bengal and Lanka - Hawaipur section under the Lumding Division in Assam, it has now been decided to install the system gradually in all other elephant corridors spread over NF Railway.

The system is based on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and existing optical fibres will be used as sensors to identify the movements of wild mals at locations and alert control offices, station masters, gatemen and loco pilots.

It uses a fibre optic-based acoustic system working on the principle of dialysis scattering phenomenon to sense the real-time presence of elephants on the track.

The AI-based software can monitor unusual movements up to a stretch of 60 km.

In addition to it, the IDS will also help in detecting rail fractures, trespassing on the railway tracks and alert about disaster mitigation due to unauthorised digging near railway tracks, landslides near tracks etc.

It is important to mention here that the pilot project has already been immensely successful in saving the lives of many elephants approaching railway tracks from being hit by trains.

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