The Indian railway system is the fourth largest network in the world spanning more than 70,000 km of track network routes, which handles more than 9,000 freight trains, 20,000 long-distance and suburban routes passenger trains from its 8,500 stations spread across the length and breadth of the country.
The fourth-largest railway system in the world holds an enormous economic impact, carrying millions of people and goods from one destination to another. Moreover The daily operations of the Indian Railways generate humongous amounts of data from passenger footfalls, to freight movements.
This data is a goldmine for digital technologies like Artificial Intelligence to harness them into business intelligence and operational efficiency and greater customer satisfaction.
Levering the feasibility of Artificial Intelligence
- Data for Operations– Indian Railway network runs on the SCADA system, a computer system for gathering and analysing real-time data. SCADA is an acronym for Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition to monitor data for traction power supply. Subsequently, SCADA enables the accessibility to vast amounts of operational data for machine learning modelling and training purposes for operational excellence.
- Predictive Maintenance– The confluence of IoT sensors and AI helps railways to spearhead predictive maintenance algorithms. The Internet of Things (IoT) can be utilised with a variety of sensors to monitor the health of rails, for example. Sophisticated automatic train track cleaning systems can keep the lines immaculate. Additionally, the railways can use drones to monitor and scan railway tracks for faults and pilferage, which can prevent any potential future derailments.
- Customer Support– Natural Language Processing (NLP) driven chatbots to determine the user intention to carry an interactive conversation. Chatbots like AskDisha (Digital Interaction to Seek Help Anytime) are a blessing to an average of four million users visiting the IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) site every day.
- Train Scheduling: The Railways employ AI algorithms, graphs, control systems, and simulation models for train signalling and scheduling. This guarantees that a train is always using every track at a station. These AI models are therefore based on historical and real-time data that show the total or average running time of trains. The priority-weighted running time of trains, and the timetable’s resistance to variations and combinations.
Artificial Intelligence in Indian Railways
- USTAAD
Developed by the Central Zone of Indian Railways, USTAAD, or Under Gear Observation Through Artificial Intelligence Assisted Droid, is an AI robot. Additionally, this is set up to document the train’s undercarriage with photos and videos and send them to the engineers for upkeep and repairs. Once it is operational. USTAAD will employ a high-definition camera to inspect the components of train coaches in real-time and transmit the results via WiFi. - Intelligent Video Analytics
Indian Railways implemented AI-driven intelligent video analytics during the passenger rush season of the Kumbh Mela 2019. In a large manner, platforms and train stations deployed intelligent video analytics for monitoring and crowd control. - Smart cards in Metros
A smart-card-based, artificial intelligence-driven ticketing system has been implemented by the Delhi Metro. Also allowing users to operate vending machines to get tickets, tokens and recharge their smart cards inside the DMRC premises. On the contrary, With AI assistance, the smart vending machine learns on the user intent. This makes travel easy for them. Automated systems powered by AI technology operate the metro stations’ and trains’ doors. - Interactive Chatbots
AskDisha (Digital Interaction to Seek Help Anytime) is a pioneering chatbot created by the Indian Railway Catering Depart. Corporation Limited (IRCTC) to improve the client experience. The artificial intelligence (AI)-powered IRCTC website handles almost four million daily users. AskDisha was developed to resemble a user-user conversation. This is coupled with the ability to react quickly to client enquiries. Provide round-the-clock customer support, with a quick query resolution time.
Finally
In the promising future ahead, Artificial Intelligence will unlock potential opportunities and introduce many benefits to the Indian Railways. The integration of AI and Railways presents an exciting beginning to all its passengers, employees. Management and stakeholders paving a new era of the Digital Railways systems.
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