Project Report

On
Indian Railways

Submitted By Group No. 3, Section C:

Aman Choudhary 2015132
Ambika Kamat 2015133
Gaurav Arora 2015146
Mohit Pai 2015155
Rajat Tiwari 2015165
Shashank Krishnan 2015175

Index

Sr. No.

Topic

Page
No.

Executive Summary

Product Line of Railways

Organizational Size

Main Market Segments & Competitors

Organizational Structure

CRIS (Centre of Railway Information Systems)

Information System functions

Members of Governing Council & Executive of CRIS

10

Structure of IS-CRIS

11

10

Planning, Development & Allocation of IS in Railways

12

11

Outsourcing & Evaluation of IS in Railways

12

12

Passenger Reservation System & Benefits

14

13

Mobile App, Smart Card & NTES

16

14

Conclusion, Appendices & References

18

Executive Summary
The Indian railways, one of worlds largest employers with total employee strength of 1.3 million
and revenues crossing 1634.5 billion rupees and growing stands out with one of the most critical
and robust information system amalgamated with itself to serve customers more conveniently. The
Indian railways which started 161 years ago in 1853 have paved the way for Indias development
in unlimited ways. From being a mediocre passenger and cargo puller to giving tough competition
to airline, water and other means of transport, from being a most demeaned means of transport to
being known as the poor mans transport to luxury travel experience, from being a travel line from
Bombay to thane to connecting entire India, from straight line projects to heavy duty projects like
konkan railway Indian railways has successfully by passed every hurdle in their path.
The next hurdle was making customer experience more delight and easy and thus it required the
formation of full time information system department for Indian railways. In 1982, Indian Railways
(IR) set up a central organization to computerize freight operations. In 1986 the Ministry of
Railways saw the need for a dedicated, autonomous organization and established CRIS (center for
railways information system) an umbrella organization for all information technology-related
activities on Indian Railways. It was entrusted with the task of designing, developing and
implementing the Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) and its communications
infrastructure. CRIS began functioning in July 1986 as an autonomous organization headed by an
Executive Director.
Indian railways today are one of the toughest competitors to airline and water way transport and
with the advent of information technology department in its custody. CRIS is using c++ to program
its various application and centralized network backbone architecture. The ERP systems developed
are along the lines of SAP (system analysis program) and currently CRIS is also pursued by tech
giants like TCS, Infosys to outsource their mega projects specially one developed in the human
resource segment.
Some of the important features of the CRIS projects are as follows:
1. Architecture: Highly scalable, secure, centralized network backbone architecture
characterized by high performance system. Three tier application architecture
including Database, Web, and Application server layer.
2. Payment: secure payment gateways with several banks. It also has separate serve
connection for banks for high speed and connectivity to ensure smooth and reliable
payments.
3. Secure; highly secure with increased fraud detection algorithm and systems. The
incomplete transactions are saved due to better connectivity. It also had multi layered
network security with intrusion detection and prevention system, web application
firewall.
Besides these the applications are under friendly and have ease to access graphical interfaces
with different servers carrying out different tasks, it allows more servers to be added to
handle traffic. Faster delivery content through servers located online.
Important systems which have been Implemented Successfully by CRIS
Unreserved Ticketing System(UTS)
Control office application(COA)
3

Freight Operation Information System(FOIS)

Integrated Coach Management System(ICMS)
National Train Enquiry System(NTES)
Passenger Reservation System(ERS)

Business/Product line of Indian Railway

Indian Railways is the lifeline of the nation. It traverses each and every part of the country
providing the required connectivity and integration for balanced regional development. The system
never stops it has been up and working continuously, unceasingly for the last several decades. It
play a very important role in the day to day life of citizens of India. It acts as one of the pillars of
the nation. Indian Railway is currently operating in both long distance and suburban rail systems on
a

multi-gauge

network

of

broad,

meter

and

narrow

gauges.

It

also

has locomotive and coach production facilities installed at several places in India and are assigned
codes identifying their gauge, kind of power and type of operation. Indian railway network has
spread cover in 29 states and 7 union territories and also provides limited international services
in neighboring states including Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Organization Size:
Indian Railways has 13.07 lakh employees on roll for 2014-15, an increase of 12% in Staff costs
over the previous year. Long-distance transport mode is commonly Rail transport used in India.
Indian railway handles almost all rail operations in India and is controlled by Ministry of Railways.
The rail network covers each and every part of the country, covering in 2011 a total length of
64,460 kilometers (40,050 mi).As of 2011 statistics, transporting 7.651 billion passengers and over
921 million tons of freight annually, It is the largest railway network in the world. Both passenger
and freight traffic has seen a steady growth, and as per the 2009 Railway budget presented by the
Railway Minister, 7 billion passengers used Indian railway for commuting in India in 2009.

Main Market Segments of Indian Railway:

Indian Railway is catering to the following segments:
1. Commuters: people who are periodically recurring traveling between one's place of
residence and work place, or for studies, and in doing so exceed the boundary of their
residential community.
2. Medium-Long distance passengers: Passengers travelling to different parts of India for
different purposes like business work, vacations.
3. Freight customers: Customers who use railway for transporting cargo from source to
destination or between the shipper and the intended destination as part of the logistics
chain. Trains may carry bulk, large intermodal containers, specialized freight in customdesigned cars. Rail freight practices and economics vary across the country and different
region in India.
4. Parcels & Express Freight customers. customers using Indian railway for the
transportation of parcels and large freight from source to destination across India

Main Competitors of Indian Railway:

1. Public transport : Public transport plays a very important role in transport industry and
remains the primary mode of transport and commuting purpose in India, and India's public
transport systems are one of the most heavily transportation system used in the world
2. Airlines: Air transport is the fastest mode of transport which has reduced distances and has
led to drastic shrinking of the world.
3. Taxi Services : Taxi services is the most used transport systems in India ,mainly in urban
cities .Taxi services is mainly used by working professionals because of the fast and easy
access

Organization structure of Indian Railway

CRIS
A summary of the information system functions in the organization
This section briefly summarizes the functions performed by the different information Systems
across the organization. Also list out the benefits of different information systems in a table.

Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS)

Control Office Application (COA)

Freight Operations Information System

(FOIS)

This system helps provide a centrally

computerized ticketing system for the
Indian Railways.
It authorizes all the unreserved
journeys
This system is available and useful to
the lower income groups that travel
longer distances
Provides connectivity between the
rural hinterland and districts, towns
and cities
It provides the train operations
information
to
FOIS(Freight
Operations Information System) and
ICMS (National Train Enquiry
System)
Since the freight trains do not run to a
fixed schedule this makes freight
operations a highly information
intensive activity
FOIS provides real time information
thus allowing good decision making
and thereby ensuring high levels of
mobility within the system
It Monitors and manages more than
10,000
locomotives,
2,50,000+
wagons and more than 3,500 freight
trains on a daily basis and generates
approximately 5000 customized
reports
Keeps track of consignment through
SMS

Integrated Coaching Management System

(ICMS)

National Train Enquiry System (NTIS)

Passenger Reservation System(PRS)

Indian Railways need to track over 50

thousand coaches
these assets must also receive timely
servicing and maintenance
ICMS system can deliver historical
records from past years in printed
reports on an officials cell phone
This system is an integral part of
ICM System
National Train Enquiry System
(NTES) provides information to the
public about :
1. expected Arrival and Departure
of trains at each stopping station,
2. train schedule information,
information
3. cancelled trains
4. diverted trains
5. platform berthing information at
major stations.
This is done through web browsing,
mobile phone or landline (voice and
SMS) and also in person at all IR
stations
Serves as a forecasting tool

It helps facilitate the reserved

journeys.
provides reservation services to
nearly 1.5 to 2.2 million passengers
daily for about 2500 trains

Software Aided Train Scheduling

(SATSaNG)

Generates the Railway time table

web National Train Enquiry System

(WebNTES)

The "spot your train" feature of this

system provides user with information
such as the current position and
expected time of arrival and departure
of the train at a particular station.

'Live Station' feature provides list of

trains expected to arrive at or depart
from any station in next 2/4/6/8 hours.

A summary of the information system functions in the organization

This section briefly summarizes the functions performed by the different information Systems
across the organization. Also list out the benefits of different information systems in a table.
Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was set up in July 1986 by the ministry of
railways as an autonomous organization. It is headquartered in New Delhi and has regional offices
in Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Secunderabad. All the Information technology
applications of the Indian railways are managed by CRIS. It also manages IT application for nonRailway Government and public sector organizations. CRIS helps leverage the organizations IT
assets. The information systems developed by CRIS provide service in various remote locations.
The projects cover areas like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

passenger ticketing
freight operations
train dispatching and control
e-procurement
crew management
management of Railways fixed and moving assets
Production of rolling stock.

Other projects currently being executed include:

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Development of ticketing on mobile phones

Linking tickets to Aadhaar
Tracking of trains in real time through GPS
Tracking of rolling stock using radio frequency identification
Setting up a geo-spatial database for the Railways
Setting up a state-of-the-art data center to house the Railways IT system.

They are also developing systems to cover emerging needs of the Railways like:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.

Protection of Railway assets,

energy management,
management of the overhead electrification system,
parcel management,
employees health management
Comprehensive financial management system.
9

CRIS has developed cost effective and sustainable systems to ensure efficient management of the
Railway
Systems.
The Information systems function - information on:
(a) Size of the IS department,
(c) The nature of working culture within the IS organization (formal or informal), and
(d) The position of the IS function in the overall organization structure (i.e., IS head reports to
whom).
CRIS consists of around 800 personnel including IT specialist for developing and managing the
systems.
Members of the Governing Council of CRIS
Minister of Railways Chairman
Minister of State for Railways Vice Chairman
Chairman, Railway Board
Financial Commissioner, Railways
Member Traffic, Railway Board
Member Electrical, Railway Board
Secretary, Department of Telecommunications
Secretary, Department of Information Technology
Managing Director, CRIS, and 3 Directors as ex-officio members
2 nominated members and one co-opted member

Members of the Executive Committee of CRIS

Member Traffic, Railway Board, & Chairman of the Executive Committee

Addl Member / IT, Railway Board
Addl Member / Budget, Railway Board
Addl Member / Commercial, Railway Board
Addl Member / Traffic, Railway Board
Addl Member / Telecom, Railway Board
Managing Director, CRIS, and CRIS Directors
CAO / FOIS, Northern Railway
Representative from Dept of IT

10

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) designs, develops, implements and
maintains most of the important information systems of Indian Railways.
Planning:
For efficiency and better management the Indian Railways have always strived to improve
efficiency for better management. In 1982, they set up a central organization to computerize freight
operations. Its function was to establish a Freight Operations Information Systems and to develop
the IT Infrastructure in Railways. The CRIS began its functioning by 1986 and is headed by a
Managing Director. The CRIS always collaborated with the IT Specialists with a motto of It can
happen in Government and have received immense recognition from the Computer world.
Development:
The Information Systems in railways implemented first way back in the early 1960s although it is
considered that the railways havent kept pace with the current IT development in the country. The
online passenger reservation system-CONCERT provides the customer interface for the ticket
booking and passenger reservation for the users whereas the FOIS manages the various freight
movements within the organization.
Allocation of Resources:
The resources are allocated based upon the requirement of the railway board which are headed by
the Ministry of Railways. The requirement is put upon the railway budget which is annually setup during the budget season and the resources are then allocated based upon that.

11

Outsourcing:
Most of the systems of the railways are outsourced as we can see that the big IT giants like TCS,
Wipro and Infosys were on a race to procure the contract to build the HRMS system of the Indian
Railways. This contract was estimated at Rs. 2500 crores and thats the reason why it was pursued
by almost all major IT Giants. Also, the railways have a plan to implement an ERP based
information system in the future for which it will again plan to outsource the resources.
Evaluation:
These information systems are evaluated by a central board authority as well as various audit firms
and consultancy firm. For example a quote from McKinsey & Co. says, The Indian Railways (IR)
is a truly great institution. It is a global giant that operates profitably, effectively and with relatively
little government support.

PRS:
Detailed description of one major information system : Select the one most important information
system for this organization, and describe it in detail. This section should address questions such
as the following:
(a) Who are the main users of the system? What are the key inputs and outputs for the system?
(b) What benefits does the system provide to various users?
(c) When was it developed, and by whom? How much has the system changed over the years, and
in what ways?
PASSENGER RESERVATION SYSTEM
The Passenger Reservation System (PRS) developed by CRIS is one of the worlds largest online
passenger reservation systems. It deals with the reservation/cancellation of the railway tickets for
the passengers. It has a distributed architecture to facilitate high availability.This system is
characterized by high performance and high reliability. It has been integrated with multiple
channels of information such as website, SMS, touch panels, display boards etc. This system has
been well accepted by all its users i.e the customers travelling via railways.
Around 1.5 to 2.2 million passengers book tickets daily using the Passenger Reservation System
(PRS) for about 2600+ trains running across the country.

12

TThe major benefit of this system is the fact that it reduces the service time at the counters. It
provides enhanced efficiency and manageability via features such as Blank Paper Ticketing,
Block Booking, Circular Journey Booking, etc. It also includes enhanced features like
Train/Passenger based enquiry channels. This system enhances reporting and accounting.
The system was Awarded for best usage of IT by Computer Society of India in the year 1999
and also the Web Ratna Platinum Icon Award to PRS Website in the year 2009.
Inputs to this system :
1. Passenger details
2. Travel details
3. Type of berth preferred
4. Number of seats
5. Schedule of the trains
Output from the system :
1. Booked Ticket
TThis system was implemented in 1994 and since then has undergone several changes. The
following is the timeline indicating the developments in this system.
1994: CONCERT phase I Implemented
1997: CONCERT phase II implemented
1999: All India Network commissioned
2000: Internet Enquiry implemented
13

2001: Alpha Migration

2002: I Ticket - Reservation
2005: E Ticket
2006: Up-gradation Facility
2011: Itanium Migration
Benefits:
Paperless Unreserved Ticketing: Mobile App

With a motive of Digital India, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has
developed a recent paperless unreserved ticketing feature in utsonmobile mobile app for
using in devices for Android and Windows both. This will help in getting rid from the print
of Unreserved Tickets at the stations. People can have this App in both android and
windows app stores.
The app at first was tested for pilot run between Chennai Egmore & Tambaram Stations of
Southern Railway on the date 22.04.2015 and Churchgate-Dahanu Road stations of
Western Railway on 08.07.2015. The app has now been started in suburbs of Chennai &
Mumbai Western Railway suburb section that covers 125 stations over the range of 295
kilometers. Presently, Users are utilizing this app for around 1600 tickets per day.
The app is recently launched in the New Delhi-Palwal section of Northern Railway
covering 11 stations over the range of 57 kilometers. For paperless ticketing, GPS helps in
coordinating of railway tracks on the New Delhi-Palwal section and 20 meters on either
side of the tracks have been earmarked as Geo-Fencing area within which no ticket booking
is allowed in order to ensure that users have ticket before the journey.
The app is built to guide the user on booking process through online alerts and help section
in it. Railway Wallet feature of this app helps for processing payments of the ticket. After
the payment, ticket confirmation page with necessary information of carrying stations,
amount paid and transaction ID is shown. The softcopy of journey ticket will be saved in
the database of the mobile app in the form of encrypted-data that cannot be misused. There
is no cancellation process as there can be false claim of paperless ticket refund even after
travelling.
The ticket has unique facility of color scheme (unique color code for each day for utilizing
the ticket on the same day) daily and it is included with Quick Response (QR) code (for
authenticating the ticket). It cannot be forwarded to another mobile or edited or printed.
There is also a sync feature in the app which helps in removing the invalid old tickets.
For checking the ticket in the journey and stations, the app has various features such as
secret code of the day, color scheme, show ticket features, booking-time and scrolling of
legend IR UNRESERVED TICKETING. If the user has no internet connection, it will
be checked through QR Code.

14

Cash/Smart Card operated Ticket Vending Machine (CoTVM)

Cash/Smart Card operated Ticket Vending machine (CoTVM) is an unmanned self-operated kiosk
machine which can be used by passengers themselves to buy unreserved tickets through
Currency/Coins as well as smart cards (as there is a long queue in the unreserved ticket window
of the stations) . These kiosks have very simple graphical interface for the transaction of ticket so
that the user can easily access and use these machines. The kiosk accepts currency/coin of all
denominations of Rs 5 and above it. The machine is same as CDM (Cash Deposit Machine of
banks) it does not accept the soiled/cut/ glued/taped/colored notes and accepts currency notes of
Gandhi series only. CoTVMs will help in reducing the queue length at existing ticket counters by
providing an alternate unmanned ticketing solution and easy mode of payment. CoTVMs have the
following functionalities:

Issue of non-concessional ( without any quota) second class railway journey tickets
for non-suburban section and second/first class journey/return tickets for suburban
section.
Issue of Platform Tickets.
Renewal of non-concessional season tickets.
Recharge of smart cards in denominations of Rs. 20/-, Rs. 50/-, Rs. 100/- and

Rs.500/-.

15

NTES: NATIONAL TRAIN ENQUIRY SYSTEM

National Train Enquiry System (NTES) is an integral part of Integrated Coaching Management
System developed and maintained by CRIS. Although Indian Railways make all out efforts to run
all passenger carrying trains as per their schedules and maintain their punctuality , at times for
reasons beyond the control of Indian Railways trains get delayed, are rescheduled from their
starting stations, cancelled or diverted to another route resulting in change in the actual
Arrival/Departure time from their scheduled time. To save the inconvenience caused to Rail users
due to these changes in train running, National Train Enquiry System (NTES) provides
information to public about expected Arrival/Departure of trains at each stopping station, train
schedule information, information about cancelled trains, diverted trains, and also platform
berthing information at major stations.
The main goal and objective behind NTES system to provide timely and reliable information to
general public through user friendly interfaces and PAN India accessibility has been achieved to a
large extent and now the information is conveniently and reliably available to public all over the
country through various delivery channels i.e. through web browsing, through mobile phone or
landline (voice and SMS) and also in person through face to face enquiry and displays at all IR
stations. NTES has won National Award for e-Governance 2010-2011 for Innovative use of ICT
by PSUs for customer's benefit and National Train Enquiry System (NTES) was adjudged as a
Finalist in the Computerworld Honors Program instituted by the Computerworld Information
Technology Awards Foundation, USA.

16

Conclusion:
We can conclude that from the observations and the research done, the Indian Railways have
progressed a lot when it comes to implementing and maintaining the IT infrastructure. However
they still lack the modernisation because they are still not up to the mark when it comes to
comparison with the modern progress in the Information systems and the IT Infrastructure in the
industries.

Appendices
1. Exhibit 1

17

2. Exhibit 2

3. Exhibit 3
Organization structure of CRIS

18

Organization of CRIS
CRIS is an autonomous Society under the Ministry of Railways, headed by its Managing Director.
CRIS Governing Council and Executive Committee oversee its functioning.
Members of CRIS Governing Council

Minister of Railways - Chairman

Minister of State for Railways Vice Chairman
Chairman, Railway Board
Financial Commissioner, Railways
Member Traffic, Railway Board
Member Electrical, Railway Board
Secretary, Department of Telecommunications
Secretary, Department of Information Technology
Managing Director, CRIS, and 3 Directors as ex-officio members
2 nominated members and one co-opted member

Members of CRIS Executive Committee

Member Traffic, Railway Board, & Chairman of the Executive Committee

Addl Member / IT, Railway Board
Addl Member / Budget, Railway Board
Addl Member / Commercial, Railway Board
Addl Member / Traffic, Railway Board
Addl Member / Telecom, Railway Board
Managing Director, CRIS, and CRIS Directors
CAO / FOIS, Northern Railway
Representative from Dept of IT

Functions and services offered by CRIS

CRIS is the IT arm of the Railways. It develops, implements, operates and maintains all the large
IT applications for Indian Railways. CRIS also provides IT systems to a few other Government
organizations and Public Sector Units.

19

References:
https://hbr.org/2004/02/getting-it-right
http://cris.org.in/CRIS/Projects
http://www.indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/view_section.jsp?lang=0&id=0,1,304,305

20