New innovation to prevent accidents at unmanned Railway crossings

December 2, 2015 Innovation Valli Sarvani No comments

To prevent accidents at unmanned railway crossings, engineers from IIT Kanpur have come up with a unique innovation. It is a warning system which helps in preventing accidents.

The technology is called Radio Frequency and Wireless Based Warning System. It produces a loud alert sound to warn people to get off the track and inform the driver that a crossing is nearby.

Currently the system is going through trials. If the trials are successful, the device will be put to use. At present, the trials are being conducted at two routes. These are: the route between Unnao and Sonik railway stations (crossing number 29C) and Lucknow-Sultanpur section (crossing number 189C).

Once the trials are finished, IIT Kanpur will give the technology to Research Designs and Standards Organization (RDSO) on December 16. RDSO is under the Ministry of Railways. It is an organization which does research and development organization work. They are the technical advisors and consultants with regard to design and standardization of railway equipment. They standardize railway construction, equipment and maintenance.

RDSO has asked IIT Kanpur to design a system which can be helpful for two trains on parallel tracks in one go. The final system is however more advanced than what was expected. If the system is spread on 16 parallel tracks, then it can manage to warn for 16 trains. A system with embedded GPS and RFID (radio frequency identification tag) will be installed in the train engine and at the unmanned railway crossing. Using this, the train can be recognized when the train is at a distance of 1,500 meters from the crossing. When the train is nearby, the warning system will give out hooters which easily informs the train driver that a crossing is approaching.

As the system is also embedded with RFID, it will be able to work even if there is a problem with the GPS. If there are two trains, the hooters will buzz for both trains and they will stop after the train clears the 50 meter mark.