Railways to launch TPWS project

Chennai: Indian Railways is strengthening its safety measures for trains with the latest being a ‘Train Protection Warning System’ (TPWS) that will eliminate human errors such as signal passing at danger and over speeding.

The first project in the country will be implemented in the Chennai division of the Southern Railway at a cost of Rs 46.77 crore, and the second in the Delhi-Agra section at a cost of Rs 50 crore.

A pilot has been going on for the last two years on the project in the Chennai Central-Gummudipundi and Chennai Beach-Gummudipundi sections. The contract for the project was awarded to the Bangalore-based Union Switch and Signals, a part of Ansaldo STS, Australia, Mr R. Velu, Union Minister of State for Railways said.

The project includes installation of 82 on-board equipment on EMU motor coaches and one on-board equipment each at the Indian Railway Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunications and Avadi car shed for training purposes.

The TPWS provides continuous supervision of the current speed of the train up to the permitted speed. The speed is calculated by the on-board computer linked to signal aspect ahead taking into consideration the permanent speed restrictions.

For instance, if a train exceeds the permitted speed by 5 km per hour (kmph), service brake is applied and when the speed comes down below the permitted speed, the service brake will be released. If the current speed exceeds the permitted speed by 10 kmph, emergency brake application takes place and the train is brought to a halt.

After ‘acknowledgment’, the emergency brake is released and the train can be restarted, according to information provided by Southern Railway.

Mr Lyle Jackson, CEO, Ansaldo STS Asia Pacific, said the company will also be doing a one-year pilot project on the 150 km Delhi-Agra stretch.

The company assembles and manufactures the systems at Mysore, and also exports to some of the European countries. It had revenues of Rs 170 crore last year, he said.

Mr S. Lahiri, Director-Indian Operations, said that the company had orders worth about Rs 350 crore on hand.