Newly appointed Railways Minister Piyush Goyal has declared that safety and security of all trains is the most important and pressing need as of now.
In a major decision, it was announced that ISRO, India’s premier space research organization will help Indian Railways to stop train accidents.
This is indeed a major announcement, which will lift the spirits of rail passengers, who felt demotivated and disappointed after record number of train accidents this year.
But, how can ISRO help Indian Rail?
Railways Minister: ISRO & Tech Will Help To Stop Accidents
Union minister Piyush Goyal, who has replaced Suresh Prabhu to become the new Railways Minister informed about the new partnership with ISRO to stop train accidents.
He said that he met ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar, and the discussion they had was an eye-opener.
He said, “Safety is very pressing and urgent need. The discussion which we had was very eye-opening in some sense for me but also very exciting in terms of possibilities that open for engaging with space technologies that Isro has developed, helping in bringing safer travel to Indian railways”
The Minister was worried over an increase in the number of train derailments and accidents this year, and wants an end to it.
Number of deaths due to train accidents have been the largest during 2016-17, as 193 people died due to mishaps on the rail. 29 train accidents were reported in the first half of 2017, killing 57 people. 69% of the accidents were train derailments.
On September 7th, 3 train derailments were reported in a single day, although a terrorist angle was also not ruled out.
Indian Railways Ready To Embrace Technology For More Safety
Way back in 2012, we had reported about a possibility of using real time GPS tracking with the help of ISRO to track and monitor trains running on different routes.
Usage of Google Maps was also recommended, for this high-tech tracking.
It seems this idea would be finally taken into consideration, and used for stopping train accidents.
ISRO had already cleared satellite connectivity of trains, with a central hub.
In future, with the help and assistance of ISRO, Indian Railways can create a comprehensive system, wherein satellite images of all tracks can be checked in real-time for ensuring that they are in the correct order.
Real time tracking of trains running on different routes can be made, using satellites, so that no two trains are found in the same track.
Although these are just apprehensions, and nothing official has come out yet, we hope that ISRO is able to help Indian Railways, and accidents are minimized to a larger extent.
We will keep you updated, as we receive more information in this regard.