GIS Initiative in Indian Railways

1. GIS Initiative in Indian Railways S. S. Mathur General Manager (Corporate Coordination) Centre for Railway Information Systems

2. Need for a GIS system • Indian Railways is a geographically distributed organization • Assets are spread across the country • Assets are of three types • Fixed assets, distributed: railway track, overhead electrified lines • Fixed assets, location-specific: stations, yards • Moving assets: locomotives, coaches, wagons, track machines Centre for Railway Information Systems

3. Need for GIS (cont’d) • GIS makes it easy to visualize different inputs and outputs from applications • It simplifies the management of geographically distributed assets • IR’s Long Range Decision Support System (LRDSS) uses it Centre for Railway Information Systems

4. Base map • To be developed using Survey of India topographic sheets, enhanced and updated • To contain commonly mapped features such as land use, rivers, built up areas, roads, bridges, railway lines, police stations, etc. • Would interface with different applications to utilize the map interface • To facilitate input as well as depict output from different applicatinos Centre for Railway Information Systems

5. First phase • Develop a layer showing all land owned by Indian Railways • Enhance and update base map through satellite imagery wherever required • Digitize existing Railway land records • Provide a layer for Railway-owned land Centre for Railway Information Systems

6. Subsequent layers • Fixed infrastructure • Track, Bridges • Cuttings and embankments, tunnels • Overhead Electrical equipment • Buildings -- stations, control offices, etc. • Yards Centre for Railway Information Systems SachinBudhisagar

7. Subsequent phases • Location of maintenance facilities • Movement of trains • Level crossings • Hospitals and medical facilities • Accident relief medical equipment • Accident relief trains • Civil administration – police stations, district administration, disaster management authority Centre for Railway Information Systems

8. Interfacing GIS with applications • Asset management systems for asset location • Train operations management systems for train running position • Planning systems to visualize system bottlenecks • Project management systems to visualize project progress Centre for Railway Information Systems

9. Centre for Railway Information Systems

10. Indian Railways Information Architecture Centre for Railway Information Systems

11. Challenges • Base map? • IR’s area coverage is very high • Survey of India maps would need to be updated • Scale / resolution versus cost? • Collection of data? • A mammoth task • Expertise to manage GIS system? • Dedicated team to be established Centre for Railway Information Systems

12. Approach followed • Focus area mapping • Satellite data • Ground surveys • Cross functional team from concerned departments • Identification of features • Identification of attributes • Source of data • Building up the database Centre for Railway Information Systems

13. Architecture • Central database • Exposing map on the Internet / intranet • Using web services to provide interfaces with the different applications • System for updation of data and configuration control of the database • Access control Centre for Railway Information Systems

14. Thank you S SMathur GM (CC) Centre for Railway Information Systems ssmathur@cris.org.in