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Abstract – Development of an intelligent transportation system for Indian Railways will increase its efficiency and safety.
Speedy development of emerging technologies such as communication and computing, intelligent systems, technological de-
velopment of railway industries can be effectively integrated over existing infrastructures for Indian Railway (IR) to develop and
design railway intelligent transportation system (RITS). The use of RITS architecture encourages structured development and
integration of intelligent transportation systems (ITS) that lead to maximization of benefits by minimizing redundancies
and maximizing capabilities. This paper discusses feasibility of using wireless technologies for a multi-layered RITS archi-
tecture that can be designed for integrating generated information. The paper also addresses the design issues and challenges in
the IR scenario, particularly safety aspects.
Keywords – RITS, ITS, Wireless Technologies, Indian Railways
Rest of the paper is organized as follows. A very brief review Navigational Satellite System. Besides satellite navigation,
of available wireless technologies is discussed in section 2. GPS devices have additional capabilities such as:
Major elements of RITS are presented in section 3, while its
architecture based on wireless communication is discussed in 2.3. Automotive Navigation System
section 4. Important design issues and challenges are illu- An automotive navigation system is a satellite navigation
strated in section 5. Section 6 concludes the paper. system designed for use in automobiles. It uses a GPS navi-
gation device to acquire position data to locate the user on a
road in the map-database. Using the road-database, the unit
2. Available wireless network can give directions to other locations along roads also in its
Wireless communication technology stands for a technique database.
for information-transfer between two or more devices that are
2.4. Cellular Communication
not physically connected. Wireless communications can be
via: radio waves or microwaves. It can also use infrared (IR) A mobile phone, cellular phone or cell phone is a device that
short-range communication in consumer IR devices such as can make and receive telephone calls over a wireless link
remote controls or via Infrared Data Association (IrDA). whilst moving around a wide geographic area. It is done by
Microwave communication is generally long-range connecting to a cellular network provided by a mobile phone
line-of-sight via highly directional antennas. The applications operator. This allows access to the public telephone network.
may involve point-to-point communication, On the other hand a similar device called cordless telephone is
point-to-multipoint communication, broadcasting, cellular used for a short distance in a single, private base station.
networks and other wireless networks. The wireless commu- Modern mobile phones support a wide variety of other
nication as is stands today, can be broadly discussed under services such as SMS (text messaging), MMS, email, Internet
following sub-section: access, Bluetooth, gaming, photography and many office and
business applications. Mobile phones having such complex
2.1. WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave and diverse computing capabilities are called smart phones.
Access)
2.5. Radio Frequency Identification-Personal digital as-
WiMAX (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access)
sistant
is a wireless communications standard. It can provide 30 to 40
mbps data rates. Its 2011 update can provide 1 Gbit/s. It is a A personal digital assistant (PDA), palmtop computer, or
part of a “fourth generation,” or 4G, of wire- personal data assistant, is a mobile device working as a per-
less-communication technology. It can provide 30-metre sonal information manager. PDAs can be connected to the
range for conventional Wi-Fi local area network (LAN). It is a Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi or Wireless Wide
a standards-based technology that can deliver last mile wire- Area Networks. Most PDAs employ touch screen technology.
less broadband access. It can be considered as an alternative to PDAs are currently being replaced by smart phones.
cable and DSL, but with data-transfer rates that are superior to
2.6. Micro power Radio
conventional cable-modem and DSL connections. However,
the bandwidth is shared among multiple users. Thi yields Micro power radio is a low-power radio broadcasting system.
lower speeds in practice. It has a radiated power range of 100 watts to 0.1 watt. It
transmits for a small local group having recipients called
2.2. GPS (Global Positioning System) listeners or viewers. It gives an avenue for small groups and
The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a space-based satel- individuals to provide local broadcasts of information and
lite navigation system. It provides location and time infor- entertainment. Micro power radio is a non-commercial ser-
mation anywhere on or near the Earth. It requires an unob- vice. In the early 1990s it became popular because of the
structed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites. It is desire for such a service in local communities.
maintained by the United States government. The GPS ser-
2.7. GIS (Global Information System)
vice is freely accessible to everyone. It is used by military,
civil and commercial users around the world. In addition, GPS A geographic information system is a system designed to
is the backbone for the global air traffic system. capture, store, process, analyze and manage all types of geo-
The GPS project was developed in 1973. GPS was created graphical data. GIS is considered as combination of carto-
by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and was originally graphy, statistical analysis, and database technology.
run with 24 satellites. It became fully operational in 1994. A GIS can be defined as a system-it digitally creates and
Next generation of GPS III satellites and Operational Control processes spatial areas that may be jurisdictional, purpose, or
System (OCX) is being developed. application-oriented. Generally, a GIS is custom-designed for
Some other systems are developed similar to GPS. Some an organization. Hence, a GIS developed for an application
of them are- the Russian Global Navigation Satellite System may not be necessarily interoperable or compatible with a GIS
(GLONASS), European Union Galileo positioning system, that has been developed for some other application.
Chinese Compass navigation system and Indian Regional It is an information system that integrates stores, edits,
12 Shivesh Tripathi and V. S. Tripathi: An Intelligent Transportation System Using Wireless Technologies for Indian Railways
grated Service Digital Network (ISDN), Very Small Aperture 4.1. The Major Constituents of RITS
Terminal based satellite links. It constitutes Rake Manage- The major architectural components which operate at differ-
ment System which captures events such as customer indents, ent levels of railway management and operation are
wagon supply, and departure/arrival in real time. Terminal grouped in:
Management System ensures billing and account of freight 1. Intelligent Train Control and Operation Management
earnings, calculation of freight charges, and generation of System (ITCOMS) – It deals with proper operation and con-
railway receipt and so on. Parcel Management System covers trol of train. It offers control over speeding up train and
parcel booking, cancellation and loading, monitoring and numbers of train on track with scheduling. It is also respon-
tracking and Radio Frequency Identification tags for tracing sible for managing locomotive, rolling stocks and all opera-
parcel. To meet the freight demand and enhance the quality of tion related resources/infrastructures.
service, six dedicated freight corridors (DFC) are planned. 2. Intelligent Monitoring and Emergency Rescue System
Two of which are expected to be in operation before 2020. (IMERS) – The objective of IMERS is to improve the safety
of railway as well as passengers and goods. Various tech-
nologies and systems monitor real time status of trains, track
surrounding environment and automate processing where
applicable as well as keep informing track side supervisory
and management systems. The track surrounding environ-
ment is not yet monitored. This leads to one of the major
accident reasons as tracks are disturbed intentionally or be-
cause of other reasons. Passing through very difficult terrain
and forest, track and its surrounding monitoring has become
one of the key challenges to IR. Still there is no plan of mon-
itoring the area near to the tracks.
3. Reliable and Control Software – Control software
should act as a nerve system for rail transportation. The
software must be highly reliable and flexible to deal with the
complexity of railway intelligent transportation system.
4. Train-to-Ground Station Communication – This is
another very important aspect to have effective control and
operation of railway transportation system. It requires many
heterogeneous networks for timely information transmission
enabling immediate corrective and necessary action.
5. Computational Platform – A computational platform
can assess the reliability and safety of railway systems. It must
be designed keeping in view the human- machine behaviors,
management strategies and so on.
6. Knowledge Discovery from Information Integration –
Intensive information are available and must be collected,
R TEL
Fig. 1. Existing IT Infrastructures: a) OFC System Architec-
ture (RailTel); b) Railway Network (RAILNET);
NASI c) Country
stored and studied on regular basis to bring improvement
in rail transportation system.These components operate at
Wide Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation and
different levels in the layered RITS architecture. They must
Ticketing (CONCERT); d) FOIS
be interconnected with efficient communication (always on)
facilities.
4. Important Components of RITS Ar-
chitecture 5. RITS Layered Architecture
The development of a wireless-based RITS for command,
Communication facilities are the key elements of RITS which
control, defect detection, and planning and scheduling sys-
keep every system integrated and coupled. As illustrated in
tems can prevent collisions and over speed accidents. They
Fig. 2, the layer architecture is divided into five different
can prevent hijackings and runaways, increase capacity and
levels. The top level focuses on the major services (us-
asset utilization, increase reliability, improve service to cus-
er/application subsystem) offered by RITS. While, rest of the
tomers, and improve energy efficiency and emissions. They
main four levels comprises of all the key components, i.e.
can increase economic viability and profits, and enable rail-
IMERS, ITCOMS and ICSS. It presents a functional view of
ways to measure and control costs and to manage the unex-
the RITS user services [9] called as Logical architecture.
pected.
1. User Application Subsystem- This level is intended for
14 Shivesh Tripathi and V. S. Tripathi: An Intelligent Transportation System Using Wireless Technologies for Indian Railways
end user applications such as reservations, enquiry, goods and services and applications. While inspecting system ensures
freight booking and tracking. proper order and present health of incoming and outgoing
2. The central management and control subsystem- It trains, signal testing and control takes care of error free and
is responsible for overall management and control of all the efficient routing and flow. Latest information relating to
available static and floating resources. They are responsible passenger and goods trains must be made available at the
for both passenger and freight traffic management and control, station. To avoid overcrowding automatic ticket machine and
safety and timely rescue operation. The user navigation sys- verification machine must be made available for passengers.
tem offers passengers or consignee making optimal travel 4. Train Onboard Subsystem– Very important in case of
plans by using available information round the clock. Simi- emergency. It should be equipped with inspection and main-
larly, e-Business allows Internet ticket booking, catering and tenance systems for emergency. It should have effective train
railway related services via e-Payment. The intelligent re- control mechanism to handle proper operation and commu-
source management system helps efficient management of nication system to deal with information transmission to
financial, infrastructure and maintenance. On the other hand, railway station subsystem, or central management and control
train operation and management system ensures train time subsystem or train-to-train or other transportation systems. A
schedule, passenger traffic management, freight traffic man- health management and information system becomes neces-
agement and so on. sary in a huge geographical area.
5. Rail Trackside Subsystem–Keeping trains on track is an
important issue. Intelligent track and road intersection super-
vision system will not only monitor the status and condition of
tracks and associated infrastructure, provide the signal for
incoming train but they will also automatically close the un-
manned intersection points and prevent any disastrous that
may occur. Wayside equipment sensors can identify defects
that can occur on passing trains so they can be stopped for
necessary repairs. Among the defects that can be detected by
wayside sensors are overheated bearings and wheels, deteri-
orating bearings, cracked wheels, derailed wheels, and ex-
cessively high and wide loads. The subsystem also equipped
with GIS based track maintenance, accident inspection and
timely prevention and recovery mechanism.
Parsing, ii) Fetch, and iii) Execute. Parsing will check the Fig. 3. Architecture for a Common Platform
syntax of the requests. Fetch is a normal process to return the
answer of the request and execute option will find the least
RITS, using wireless and wired communication systems
approach to return the result of the request. Least approach
can play an important role in sharing the information. In ad-
can get the result in minimum time of interval following dif-
dition, development of RITS will enable effective usage of
ferent approaches. Within few main data bases, there will be
existing systems. It will be flexible enough to be capable of
logical division of main data base like train status, ticketing,
updating at any stage and any time in the future.
parcel information, rescue and recovery and so on. The pro-
vision of back- up is available for defined time duration of
current transaction. There can be 3-4 mirror copies of back- 7. Design Framework
up data base at different locations for recovery in the case of
crash and such events. Thus a huge and efficient data base A well organized and careful planning is required to design
system is mandatory requirement. This will establish the RITS architecture in IR network in order to enhance the per-
standard of structures and transmitting methods for railway formance such as safety, capacity, punctuality, speed and so
transport and build a series of data warehouse used for or- on [11]. Using intelligent monitoring, maintenance, decision
ganization, storage, query and communication of common support, key performance indicator (KPI), better data inter-
information. Designing this data base is a big challenge. Apart pretation and evaluation, flexible data and process integration
from this, there are many important design issues that need to can enhance the performance of RITS. For this, system should
be addressed in order to develop the architecture. Some of the require co- operation, heterogeneity and efficient distribution.
basic issues are: An intelligent communication system with many different
1.Standard infrastructure – IR need to improve the very flexible communication networks can provide ubiquitous data
basic railway infrastructure such as electrification, quality access. Communication networks offer dependable connec-
tracks to be used by high speed trains, engines and coaches tions to the wayside and central data sources. It can extend
equipped with modern IT, communication and control de- reliable service transport to mobile resources. This will result
vices. in optimization of railway system’s observability and con-
2.Distributed Sub-systems - Because many sub-systems trollability. The system architecture defines the functions that
are scattered and distributed in a large geographical region, must be performed to implement a given user Service, the
monitoring and integrating distributed information of infra- physical entities where these functions resides, the interfac-
structure and rolling stock data sources in the railway domain, es/information flows between the physical systems and the
stakeholders, hardware and software systems are very diffi- communication requirements for the information flows. It
cult. This is the area where wireless communication plays a also defines the requirements for the standards needed to
significant role in form of wireless sensors and nodes. support national and regional interoperability.
3.Process Coordination - Coordination of distributed
heterogeneous processes is multifarious. Similarly, the co-
operative computing performance data from infrastructure,
operational management, rolling stock and traffic manage-
ment becomes complex.
4.Network Integration - Integration of heterogeneous
networks technologies is one of the most challenging tasks.
testing and validation are carried out. A methodology adopted and integration of support systems reduce the time needed for
in the project InteGRail [10], intelligent Integrated Railway in maintenance and prevent mistakes, thereby improving vehicle
European context, can be used following combined approach availability and reliability.
of top-down and bottom-up. The top-down approach defines
a high-level description of the railway system in terms of KPI.
The bottom-up approach examines the current practices and
requirements. Available technologies then can be examined to
convert data into information and allow them process intel-
ligently. The processed information is then stored into suita-
ble repositories and processed to obtain necessary knowledge.
The knowledge is made available by means of suitable ser-
vices such as, following service oriented approach. The me-
thodology is expected to result in development of system
architecture, complete and flexible enough to allow the im-
plementation of all envisaged applications, in the framework
of their respective scenarios.
Complexity of the system design can be reduced by sub-
dividing the major operations. For example, a devised
framework consisting of four major phases/tasks of design is
shown in Fig. 4. Different divisions may operate simulta-
neously; however, some are dependent on the completion of
others. Some continuous processes like overall management,
evaluation and co-ordination between scientific and industry
community, providing support, cost analysis and training go
on throughout project life cycle. It includes the platforms to
provide sufficient dissemination and preparation of training
Fig.5. Advanced Monitoring Systems for Intelligent
courses, as well as the provision and the application of a
Railways
harmonized methodology to calculate the economic impacts.
The system architecture defines the functions that must be
performed to implement a given user service, the physical 8. Conclusion
entities where these functions resides, the interfac-
es/information flows between the physical systems and the Design and development of intelligent railway transportation
communication requirements for the information flows. It systems becomes extremely important especially in scattered
also defines the requirements for the standards needed to geography and huge networks such as in Indian scenario.
support national and regional interoperability. Many challenging issues have been discussed. A framework
RITS, a new generation of rail transportation should in- of design along with possible wireless techniques is also
corporate advanced and intelligent subsystems such as ad- presented. Although there are many research and training
vanced intelligent monitoring and control systems for train, organizations supporting Indian railways helping in engi-
infrastructure, supervision; advanced maintenance and so on. neering, design and building IR as one of the competitive
An example of standard architecture for a new generation transportation systems, but RITS merits can’t be ignored.
of monitoring and control systems is shown in Fig.5. It is RITS integrate all the components in a most efficient and
expected that all needed devices can dynamically plug-in, optimized manner. Therefore, the proposed RITS architecture
with simple decentralized intelligent re-configuration in case will be able to make it one of the most developed and efficient
of service update, changes or other modifications. It should transportation systems in the world.
have: the ability to expand and dynamically accommodate to
new functionality (e.g. new sensors) via service discovery; to References
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