Indian Railways has scaled up the deployment of its artificial intelligence-enabled Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to curb elephant fatalities on rail tracks, with the technology now active across 141 route kilometres (RKms) of the Northeast Frontier Railway and tenders awarded for an additional 981 RKms nationwide.
The IDS, which uses a Distributed Acoustic Sensing (DAS) system, generates real-time alerts for loco pilots, station masters and control rooms when elephant movement is detected near the tracks. The system is aimed at ensuring timely preventive action and significantly reducing collision risks in vulnerable zones.
The Railways is concurrently piloting AI-driven predictive maintenance in signalling systems at select stations to assess its effectiveness. Trial results are expected to generate standardised failure prediction and alert mechanisms. The national transporter has also adopted technologies such as Online Monitoring of Rolling Stock (OMRS) and Wheel Impact Load Detectors (WILD) for early detection of rolling-stock defects.
To further strengthen safety mechanisms, Indian Railways has signed MoUs with Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited for the induction of a Machine Vision-based Inspection System (MVIS) to detect hanging parts or missing components in moving trains, and with Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to introduce Automatic Wheel Profile Measurement Systems (AWPMS) for real-time wheel geometry monitoring.
The initiatives were detailed by Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha on Friday, where he reiterated that the adoption of AI and machine-vision tools is central to improving predictive maintenance and preventing accidents on the national rail network.
