IT IMPLEMENTAION IN

INDIAN RAILWAY INDUSTRY

DHANYA.M

MBA INTERNATIONA BUSINESS

SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT STUDIES
CUSAT, KOCHI-22
Email: dhanu_dhanya1987@yahoo.co.in

ABSTRACT: Here we examine the Railway and IT interface from the

perspective of Railways, to identify uses of IT for improving effectiveness and
efficiency of Railways and to evaluate issues pertaining to railways
developing and offering IT infrastructure for public use. Various uses of IT in
railways are PRS, IMPRESS, CONCERT, FOIS and CRIS. Now a day’s
ticket reservations are computerized. We can save a lot of time from that.
Like ways so many IT implementations has been took place in Indian railway
which increased the efficiency of Indian Railway industry. They have been
discussed detail on this report.
.

Key Words: Computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS),

Freight Operations Information System (FOIS), Center for Railway
Information Systems (CRIS)
1.0 INRODUCTION

Transportation Industries such as Railways operate in a dynamic and constantly

changing environment. This requires a continuous update of information about current
status and location of these assets. The optimum utilization of material resources,
which they deploy, would require collection and collation of accurate data on their
current utilization and an inventive analysis of the information collected. Information
Resource is a critical managerial tool for confronting and tackling the business
challenges on a real time basis. Transportation industries are also service industries
and they thrive and flourish on Information - rich soil that provides them the vitally
needed link to their customers and other major stakeholders.
Railways being multi-location, multi-functional and multi-divisional organization
provide an ideal backdrop for Computer Networks, which can allow sharing of
resources across the Corporation and information with their customers. Railway
Industry, being an age-old industry, finds many of its existing business and
operational practices inadequate for adjusting in the current fast changing business
environment. Unless, Railways also develop capabilities to harness information
resources through the use of exploding information technology, as other industries are
doing, its continued presence as a viable industry in future may become a question
mark. On the contrary, if the railway system can exploit Information Technology to
modernize their operations and practices to suit the needs of their customers, they
can gain tremendous competitive advantage in the present and future business
environment.

2.0 Background of IT in Railways

Indian Railways (IR) is the principal mode of transport in the country. Indian Railway
today has 62,660 route km of rail track. The total investment on IR has been Rs.356.2
billion. Last year, IR moved 390.5 million tonnes of freight, generating a traffic output
of 272 billion tonne kms. At the same time the system carried 4,068 million
passengers generating a traffic output of 339 billion passenger kms. This output was
produced with the help of over 7,000 locomotives and 300,000 wagons. The efficiency
index of Wagon utilization measured in terms of net tonne kms per wagon per day
stood at 1,780, which is one of the highest in the World. IR's network has 7,050
Railway Stations and its employees number a little over 1.6 million - making it the
largest single employer in India. Over the last four and half decades, the freight
transport has increased by about 5.75 times and passenger output by about 4.2
times. The growth in traffic output has not been evenly matched by the growth in
inputs in the form of track and rolling stock. The high density has been further
accentuated by the imbalance of the traffic flows. The BG routes though forming
63.2% of the route carry 95% of freight traffic and 89% of passenger traffic of IR.
Among the BG routes, the six corridors connecting the four major metropolises of
Mumbai, Calcutta, Delhi and Chennai and the two diagonals comprising 15.8% of total
network carry in excess of 56% of the total freight transport output and 47% of
passenger traffic, thereby causing serious congestion on the golden quadrilateral. The
perennial constraint of resources has adversely affected Railway's development
resulting in diversion of traffic from rail to road at an overall higher cost to the
economy.
Currently, Railways carry only 40% and 15% of the overall freight and passenger
traffic respectively. Rapid growth in the demand for bulk transport has compelled the
railways to evolve operating strategies and technology for running unit trains to match
this demand. The emphasis of the railways on running of unit trains is denying the use
of cost effective rail transport to a large number of smaller volume customers and this
has been hastening the decline of market share on the part of Railways. Indian
Railways have reached today a significant phase and are at a threshold of an
uncertain future. IR will be required to make necessary competitive adjustments to
deal with the pressures of market forces in a liberalized economic environment, not
only to remain financially viable, but to be able to satisfy the growth in demand for rail
transport. As Railways stare into the dark-tunnels, the only source that can probably
shed the light to carry it - blazing into the future is the Information Technology tool,
which many successful organizations are using to their profit.

2.0 Earlier Developments

Realizing the important role that information plays in Railways operations, IR had
embarked on its Computerization Program, earlier than many other organizations in
the country. Towards the end of 60's, two positive developments took place in Indian
Railways. Firstly, even though, computerization was perceived by many as a labor
saving measure, IR could realize its potential advantage and the plan to progressively
computerize Railways was accepted in principle by Management and the Labor
Unions.
Secondly, a dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a
basic requirement for train operation, even though the future development of the
merger of computers and communication to give birth to Information Technology was
not actually visualized at that time.
After the early introduction of regular flavor computer applications such as Pay rolls,
Inventory control and Operating statistics, Railways were poised in the mid 70's for
deployment of computers for productivity improvement through building up operational
databases. However, certain administrative issues and political development came in
the way of bringing about any further developments in the field of computerization.
The period between mid 70's to early 80's were however utilized by IR to develop a
blue print for further computerization. During the beginning of the
80's IR decided on:
• Computerization of the Passenger Reservation Arrangement.
• Developing a Freight Operations Information System.
• Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways and Production Units
with the State-of-the-art Computer systems enabling the organization to computerize
more applications and increasing the volume of users.
• Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Workshops,
Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes.
• Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
 In the last 10 years, IR has made significant progress in Computerization. Out of
these developments, we shall examine some of the systems that are currently being
used/developed on IR.

3.0 Computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS)

Out of the total passengers carried by IR, inter-city passengers constitute a mere 9%
of the total volume. But, this small proportion, out of the total, generated 176 billion
passenger-km out of a total of 341 billion passenger-km, about 52% of the total. They
also bring in a revenue of Rs. 42.9 billion in a total passenger revenue of Rs. 60
billion, constituting roughly 72% of the total. It is a matter of comfort for IR that this
market segment is a well-patronized one and in order to meet the situation of demand
over running supply, the customers have been provided with the facility of making
their reservation on these trains, 30 days in advance.
The seats/berths reservation system on trains is a fairly complex activity, not only
because of volume involving more than 600,000 seats/berths reservations per day,
but also because of seven different categories of trains operating, using 72 types of
coaches with seven classes of reservation, more than 40 types of quotas and more
than 80 kinds of concessional tickets. The method of calculation of fare is also quite
complex as charges are based on the distance, comfort level provided and the transit
time. Because of this complexity and sheer volume involved, IR undertook
management of Reservation work through computers. A pilot project consisting of a
few popular trains implemented at New Delhi in November 1985 came out successful
and was well received by the customers. By May 1987, the entire New Delhi
Reservation Load was computerized. The stand-alone VAX Computer Systems were
further implemented at remaining three metropolitan cities, namely, Mumbai (June
'87), Calcutta (July '87) and Chennai (October '87) and they account for over 40% of
reservation volume. The last stand-alone Cyber Computer System was implemented
at Secunderabad (July '89), which was subsequently replaced by VAX computer
system (Jan '95).
Many other stations having advance reservation arrangements were connected as
remote terminals to the existing five computer systems for accessing the entire
database of the host computer. In the computerized system, IR decided that technical
and service considerations would be used to determine the host to which a station
would be linked up. To improve the service levels further, by providing better access
to customers, remote terminals from the host computers are also being provided at
satellite locations in the Metropolitan cities. In some major cities, satellite terminals
from five host computer systems were also provided, thus allowing customers access
to reservation databases residing there. A teleprinter interface to PRS called
AUTOMEX is also in place to enable those stations which are not connected by
remote terminals, to access the reservation database.
The Passenger Reservation System Software is given the name Integrated Multi-train
Passenger RE-Servation System (IMPRESS) and consists of roughly 2,700 Sub
routines. Developed through 30 man years of programming effort in the language of
FORTRAN, the software functions as an integrated system of four main modules,
which handle the functional requirements of Reservation, Enquiry, Accounting and
Charting.
The system has full scale back up and recovery facilities. The entire computerized
PRS system, thus, functions as five stand-alone systems. The stand-alone
architecture does not allow reservation at a terminal from databases in two different
host computers. The provision of remote terminals at major stations from more than
one host computer partially takes care of this, though the customer has to stand in
two or more queues. IR now plans to inter-link the five host computers using
networking software and distributed transaction processing. This will provide access
to databases in all the five host computers at any terminal in the country. The entire
system can then cover almost all reservation quotas on IR, with the databases
distributed over five computer locations, providing reservation access all over the
country. As a first major step towards the goal of single image passenger reservation
system, the first prototype of PRS Networking Software, CONCERT (Countrywide
Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation) using FORTRAN (30%) and C
(70%) languages was implemented at Secunderabad in January '95. CONCERT is
written, keeping in mind the Client-Server architecture of Computer System to achieve
easy hardware expansion ability in future. Its message routing feature for WAN (Wide
Area Network) implementation is achieved through RTR software and Router
hardware, connected directly to an ethernet backbone. As a first phase of CONCERT
implementation, the IMPRESS software version at the two stand-alone PRS systems
at Secunderabad and New Delhi has been replaced with CONCERT and work is in
progress for networking these two systems, using 64 kbps channels. The network
application modules, once successfully completed, are expected to get extended to
PRS at Calcutta, Chennai and Mumbai. After the full-scale implementation, the
requirement of communication channels will come down, as there will be no need for
extending circuits for connecting remote terminals to particular PRS location only, in
view of every terminal.

4.0 Freight Operations Information System (FOIS)

The market share of IR in the total freight traffic carried in the country has been
declining in the last 20 years mainly due to the inability of IR to carry all the traffic
offered to it. This inability arises from the fact that the railways have been consistently
facing severe shortage of Rolling Stock for carrying all traffic and serious constraints
in line capacity for moving the traffic. While considerable inputs are needed for
augmenting the capacity of rolling stock as well as line capacity, the optimum
utilization of existing resources is considered more imperative for carrying additional
volume of traffic.
It is of common knowledge that railway systems all over the world have profitably
used computerization for improving the utilization of rolling stock assets of their
systems. Realizing the significant contribution that computerization can make in
improving the utilization of rolling stock assets, Indian Railways have been planning
from the early stages for the introduction of use of computers in the freight operations.
In the early 70's the advance transmission of CONSIST from marshalling yard to
marshalling yard was attempted but the inherent limitations of the hardware available
at that time and the non availability of reliable communication lines thwarted the early
attempts. The administrative issues and political developments which were
responsible for stagnancy in the area of computerization during late 70's also played a
major part in delaying further introduction of computers in freight operations.
Ultimately, Indian Railways decided in 1986 to go in for an integrated computer
communication system called Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) with an
objective to computerize the information relating to all operational activities and
monitor the performance of all activity centers connected with freight traffic
management.FOIS will maintain data banks of all fixed and rolling stock assets of the
IR with their characteristic features, to help proper evaluation and optimization of their
use. All the data will be captured dynamically, as an event is happening. Such data
banks will be used to improve the quality of decision making and for producing
management information reports on all aspects of freight operations, without the need
to collect past data, every time. For this, FOIS will have many sub-systems for
handling individual activities.
It was anticipated that the introduction of FOIS would bring about a minimum of 10%
improvement in Wagon utilization and 5% improvement in Locomotive utilization. The
FOIS architecture is two tier, with a central system at Railway Board level, processing
all identified core functions relating to moving assets and Zonal Systems at 5
locations processing all local functions carried out at Activity Reporting Centers such
as Goods Sheds and Sidings, Transhipment Points, Yards, Stations, Interchange
Points, Wagon Repair Depots, Locomotive Sheds, Fuelling Points, Crew Changing
Points, Carriage & Wagon Workshops, Locomotive Workshops etc.
While the central computer system is located in New Delhi, the five Zonal Computer
Systems are located at New Delhi, Mumbai, Calcutta, Chennai and Secunderabad.
For implementing FOIS, after surveying the similar technologies available in world
railways, it was decided to import software from Canadian National Railroad for the
data processing at the central computer. This software called TRACS (Traffic
Reporting and Control System) ran on IBM compatible machines and had been
implemented earlier in Southern Pacific Railroad, Canadian National Railroad and
British Rail. The Central System handles the core functions like control of wagon
movement, control of train movement, locomotive movement, scheduling and routing
of traffic, empty wagon distribution, container traffic, safety management, marketing
applications, total system performance statistics, corporate planning etc. The Zonal
Systems handle distributed field functions like yard management, local area
management (inclusive of Goods sheds,
Transshipment sheds, Invoice preparation and invoicing), maintenance and repairs of
wagons and locomotives, crew management, fuel management, safety management,
statistical (query based, scheduled, off-line and message) reports, accounting, billing,
costing and apportioning of revenue among the Zonal Railways etc. The assessment
of the cost of FOIS Project has ranged from Rs.2.1 billion (1979) to Rs.5 billion
(1982), to Rs.17 billion (1986). The cost has since been revised down to Rs.11 billion
in 1988, at 1986 prices.
The major reason for cost fluctuations were the uncertainty over creation of
supporting communication infrastructure to cater the need of reliable and speedy
computer communication across the length and breadth of IR, spanning all over India.
Presently, a pilot project is under implementation on Northern Railway using Central
and Zonal Computer Systems installed at New Delhi. On the basis of the experience
gained from the field trial, FOIS network will be expanded in future. This, however, will
need a strong organizational will at all levels to accept the project, quicker decision
making at every stage of project implementation and availability of adequate funds, in
time. The traditional method of "Repetitive and periodic reporting" being followed at
present by Indian Railways for train operation is unable now to cope up with the ever
increasing demand of public transport coupled together with increase in speed and
safety standards. To reap the benefit of explosion in IT worldwide and also to take the
advantage of liberalized policy of Government of India towards Information
Technology, Indian Railways have establish a ‘Corporate Wide Information System’
(CWIS) between Railway Board, Zonal Railways Head Quarters, Production Units and
Centralized Training Institutes, etc. called as ""RAILNET". It will be able to provide
smooth flow of Information on demand for administrative purposes from the important
operational locations up to top level and vice-versa, which will help in taking quicker
and better decisions.

5.0. Center for Railway Information Systems (CRIS)

In 1986, the Ministry of Railways established CRIS to be an umbrella for all computer
activities on Indian Railways. They also entrusted it with the task of design,
development and implementation of FOIS, along with its associated communications
infrastructure. The Center started functioning from July 1987. It is an autonomous
organization headed by the Managing Director. CRIS is mainly a project-oriented
organization engaged in development of major computer systems on the Railways.
CRIS has acquired special knowledge and expertise in the field of informatics. With
such a rich practical experience, a dedicated team of professionals and its own R&D
effort, CRIS aims to be a leader in this fast developing field.

6.0. Need for CRIS

A separate organization was considered better suited to take up all computer activities
on IR mainly for the following reasons:
• To avoid duplication of efforts by individual Railways.
• To ensure standardization of computer hardware and
software on the Railways.
• To undertake design and development of major applications
on Railways requiring higher levels of expertise, faster decision
making and system wide applicability.
• To insulate the organization from day to day working of the
Railways so that its objectives are not lost sight of.
• Need for a combined effort of Railways and Computer
Specialists, considered best suited for the development of the
computer applications on Railways.
• Need for development of expertise in highly specialized fields
like Operation Research, Simulation, Expert System, CAD/CAM,
Process Control etc.
• Need for greater flexibility to keep pace with the fast changing
technology.

7-0 RAILNET

RAILNET has the potential for transfer of messages, files, e-mails between the
important locations on Indian Railways. In addition, the internal web site in Railway
Board and Zonal Railways Headquarters supports codes, manual procedure orders,
policy directives and other important information for day-do-day use by various
officials. Detailed estimate amounting to Rs.7.81 crore for the work of RAILNET was
sanctioned in Nov.’98 by the Railway Board.
RAILNET will provide computer connectivity between Railway Board and Zonal
Railways, Production Units, Centralized Training Institutes, RDSO, CORE,
MTP/Calcutta & 46 Major Training Institutes.
Tools Provided By Railnet
• Email
• EDI
• WWW
• Telnet
• FTP
Problems with Transfer of Messages & Files
• Manual system of transfer of messages & files are time consuming
&unbelievably slow.
• Sometime the messages are illegible (due to poor photocopy quality or poor
hand writing)
• The messages sometimes do not reach the concerned person.
• Sender is not sure whether the message has reached the correct person.

6.0 CONCLUSION

The knowledge about use of information technology in railway operations around the
globe would help us improve our rail transportation and would enhance prompt
commodity movements. Thus there is a great need to enhance and put into effect
such information technology, adding that cooperation in unifying different national
railway systems would be a valuable advance for the globalization and liberalization
processes.
Much more improvements have to be made in Indian railway system in order to
compete with the global railway transportation.

10.0 REFERENCES

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%2030799/index.htm. downloaded on 04/10/2009
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7. Indian railway http://www.indiainfoline.com/infrastructure.htm

Downloaded on 25/102009
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12. ‘it and railway” http://www.now-india.com/general/news

downloaded 27/10/2009
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