COIMBATORE: The Southern Railway is set to introduce an optical fibre-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) to prevent wild elephant deaths in train collisions in the Madukkarai forest range in Tamil Nadu and adjoining areas in Kerala.
Already, subways have been constructed and railway tracks have been fenced using old rails in the Madukkarai forest to prevent elephants from getting hit by trains.
Under the new initiative, underground optical fibre cable (OFC) has been laid on a 120km stretch between Kottekkad and Walayar (both in Palakkad district), and Walayar and Madukkarai (in Coimbatore district). Once the elephant walks over or near the cable, an immediate alert will be sent to the loco pilots and station managers within the 40 km Palakkad and Madukkarai stretch.
Upon receiving it, the loco pilots have to reduce the speed of the trains to prevent wild elephants from getting hit. In the first phase, the divisional railway officials handed over 50 tablets to loco pilots on which alerts will be sent directly.
“The cables were laid one meter under the earth as well as 15-20m away on both sides of the railway track between Kottekkad and Madukkarai to ensure safe access for wild elephants. The total project cost is `20 crore between the above-said areas where the wild elephant movements are high.
We have adopted OFC-based distributed acoustic sensing AI technology. We have been conducting a trial run, and it will be commissioned within the next few weeks,” said a senior official of the Southern Railway.