NEW DELHI: Railways entered into an agreement with ISRO for developing applications in the field of Remote sensing and Geographic Information System (GIS) for remote sensing at unmanned railway crossing including.
Ministry of Railways proposes to use space technology tools in providing passenger information system in all trains indicating the next station, stoppage, real time train tracking, survey of new rail route alignments particularly in hilly and difficult terrains, conduct track vulnerability studies, mapping of assets and introducing web enabled rail user centric services.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said that Railways want to keep itself modernized with the new technological innovations and some of the most difficult solutions could be found by using latest technology.
"We need to use technology for solving daily problems. Lot of changes have taken place over a period of time. Our challenge is not just to use technology but how to constantly keep update with the technology. Railways have to keep modernising," Prabhu said during the signing of the MoU.
Minister of State for Railways Manoj Sinha also sought ISRO’s help for providing technology that can be used by railways during foggy weather conditions when trains get delayed for hours.
Currently, Railways is using space technology for providing connectivity to Passenger Reservation System (PRS) counters and unreserved ticketing system at remote and non-rail head locations.
Besides this, the technology is being used for emergency communication using satellite phones from disaster sites, Global Positioning System (GPS) for various applications like remote monitoring of locomotives, passenger information system in Mumbai suburban trains, synchronised clocks and WiFi facility in select Rajdhani Express trains.