COVER STORY REIMAGINEERING INDIAN RAILWAYS.

With rapidly evolving demographics and consequent massive urbanization, transportation systems must be redesigned to meet the increasing demand for sustainable mobility, the biggest game changer going forward.  Agith G Antony takes a peek into the critical role technology can play in the massive drive of rail and metro expansion.

IMAGINE - a CoradiaiLint, a hydrogen-powered train bulleting on the Indian terrains.Alstom, the company which has conceptualized and made it a reality, of course not in India, has already sold 41 of these hydrogen-powered trains in Germany. Other countries such as the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, France and Italy are also interested in the technology. Indian Railways is also experimenting with hydrogen fuel-cell-based trains as well as electrifying its tracks - especially DFC - to address its energy requirements, improve its operating ratio and reduce its environmental impact.

With National Rail Plan Vision 2030, the government of India has set a vision of making railways a 100% safe, fast and reliable mode of transport for passengers and freight. The plan is to modernize the entire network by investing around Rs 50 lakh crore by 2030. As of today, the Indian rail network is third largest in the world by size, with a route length of 67,415 km (approximately 1,23,542 km track length) and over 7,321 stations. India is also emerging as a fast growing market for urban rail systems. Currently, 10 Indian cities have an operational urban rail network spanning 536 km. In short, the Indian Rail sector is ripe for innovations and developments in all areas and the government's vision aims for at disruption in every area, including even the environmental impact of railways.  And technology will play a crucial role in the continuing expansion and transformation of India's rail and metro networks. In the National Rail Plan: Vision 2030, some of the important areas earmarked for development include high speed trains, safety and track modernization. Notably, all three are interrelated; for example, in the absence of track modernisation, neither safety can be enhanced nor high speed trains are possible.

Integrating technology with railway operations results in optimization of operations and ensures safety of the fleet. Fleet management can be easily enhanced with the right use of data. It improves traffic management procedures to enable higher train availability. For example, Alstom has built one of the world's largest Operations Control Centre (OCC) in Allahabad for the DFC project. The entire freight traffic from Kolkata to Ludhiana can be viewed and controlled and monitored through a 90-meter digital wall. Built on Alstom's ICONIS (Integrated Control and Information System) signaling platform, it enables seamless supervision and control offering 'Integrated Train Management System (TMS) for the first time in India for mainlines.

Harsh Pareek, Regional Sales Director, India and SAARC, Trimble states, “We believe our cutting-edge technology solutions like Trimble Rail Asset Lifecycle Management, SurfView, GEDO CE and Beena Vision can play a meaningful role in the ongoing transformation of Indian railways. These solutions are in fact well-suited to help the Indian Railways achieve its key goals of launching high-speed trains, enhancing passenger safety and achieving higher operational efficiency. Further, as India progressively adopts metro rail networks in most of its large cities, we are ready with a comprehensive portfolio of industry leading solutions that can help plan, design and construct these projects faster and within costs, and operate them for maximum efficiency and safety. Trimble's railway solutions are fully integrated for end-to-end and intelligent railway infrastructure and asset lifecycle management, covering all key phases of planning, design, construction, and finally operations and maintenance or ongoing repairs of rail assets. Our railways portfolio is categorised into infrastructure solutions, rolling stock solutions and network operations solutions. These solutions are designed to streamline all processes and workflows in order to keep new or upgradation projects on time and costs on target; thus enabling India's metro and rail networks meet their expansion and transformation goals.

States Agendra Kumar, President, Esri India, “As railways is driving its modernization vision, integration with sensors / IoT is being adopted at a rapid pace for a real / near-real time information equipment condition like wagon health, pressure, temperature, malfunction, water levels in water tanks, etc., which will provide an effective decision support mechanism especially for rolling stocks. Similarly, drones / UAVs / LiDAR surveys are being used extensively and this data captured in GIS will provide an effective method to review project progress, field assessments, mapping and where available, video playback of drone captures to monitor and track other railway assets.” Being an open platform, Esri ensures that workflows, automations and integrations with other IT and business systems such as CRM / BI is seamless. For e.g. BIM - GIS integration is seeing as significant update for efficient planning and management for the new capital investments being planned like station redevelopment, track doubling.”

“India, a relatively late entrant in modern Metro system, has seen exponential growth over the past two decades. Since 1990s, metro projects have grown to 678km operational, 462km under construction, and 457km of approved networks in more than 25 cities. The Indian metro construction ecosystem has matured from a handful of construction companies to a cluster of experienced contractors across civil, electrical, rolling stock and allied functions. During early days, Indian companies would form joint ventures with international players. Today, the industry has more than 15 capable contractors delivering complex projects independently,” says R Anantakumar, Director, Urban Infrastructure, Afcons.

“The government of India is in the process on transforming Indian Railways. It has planned several projects such as electrification, high speed railways, private operation of trains, refurbishment of existing rolling stocks, Metro Neo, Metrolite. Many Tier II cities have been approved for implementation of metro rail projects such as Bhopal, Patna, Indore, Amaravati, Guwahati, etc. BEML expects some of these projects to be tendered in the upcoming financial year. Further, we expect the extensions of the exisiting lines, Metro Neo, Light Metro to cater mobilization demand,” states Amit Banerjee, Director (Rail & Metro Business, BEML Limited.  “BEML is to play a part of local manufacturing plan in high speed trains for Mumbai - Ahmedabad high speed rail project. Further, BEML is interested to explore the businesses associated with transit systems such as Operation & Maintenance of Trains, refurbishment of existing stocks and aluminium coaches. With this, BEML is planning to contribute and support, increasing transport efficiency and decongesting the densely populated cities,” Banerjee adds. 

Nalin Gupta, Manaaging Director, J Kumar Infra says, “Efficient and sustainable urban transport systems and mobility are critical for the smooth functioning of India's cities. Public transportation infrastructure in India needs high levels of investment and massive upgrading to spur a modal shift from private vehicles. It is estimated that over 50% of Indians will be living in urban areas by 2050. The government is taking various steps to reduce traffic congestion, pollution and implement eco-friendly transport policies in major cities. The focus is on economic viability rather than financial viability. Metro rail has emerged as a major tool to address the poor urban transport planning issues in major Indian cities since other modes of transport like buses, BRTS etc are unlikely to work in India due to huge population and space constraints.” He adds, “We believe J Kumar Infra is well positioned to reap the massive modernization drive including Metro construction in India. Over the years, we have invested in technologies, trained our people, and enhanced our capabilities alongside strengthening our financial position. Today we are amongst the few construction companies in metro segment who can bid for large projects on a standalone basis.

“India is at the cusp of transformation in mainline and urban mobility. In both segments, there are a lot of technological advancements that Alstom is bringing to India as well as developing indigenously. In mainline, improve passenger experience, the government has created new opportunities to collaborate with corporates to run 151 passenger trains on 140 pairs of routes divided into 12 clusters. This is an innovative effort to attract private funds to expand and modernize the country's rail network and attendant infrastructure. This is a game changer as it paves the way for bringing in modern rolling stock and upgraded traveling experience that has been lacking so far,” states Alain SPOHR, Managing Director - India & South Asia, Alstom.

Spohr adds, “With the dedicated freight corridors being reaching completion and we are excited about the future as it promises immense potential. Sustainable mobility will play a key role in helping the government and businesses kick start economic revival with renewed energy.” The Indian Railways is making several coordinated moves to become more sustainable. It is experimenting with hydrogen fuel-cell-based trains as well as electrifying its tracks—especially the dedicated freight corridors—to address its energy requirements, improve its operating ratio and reduce its environmental impact.

Alstom's high-power WAG 12B locomotives are a true game changer as they are the fastest, safest, strongest and cleanest locomotives currently operating on the Indian freight network. These locomotives are of 12,000-horsepower with a twin Bo-Bo design, engineered to run at speeds of 120 kmph. Equipped with Insulated Gate Bipolar Transistors (IGBT) based propulsion technology, Alstom's WAG 12B uses regenerative braking, reducing energy consumption. Moreover, with the WAG 12B, Alstom is introducing freight trains that emit lesser heat and traction noise. With 1676mm of Board Gauge, the WAG 12B locomotives are designed to take smooth turns even at the sharpest of curves. The 100% electrification will bring
down the operational cost for the Indian Railways. Based on the Prima T8 technology, these e-Locos make operations comfortable and flexible in extreme temperatures, ranging from −50 °C to 50 °C. With WAG 12B, Alstom introduces novel features into Indian freight trains, such as climate control systems, air conditioners, food preparation and storage facilities and toilets. These e-Locos are also equipped with spacious cabins and provides the best possible working conditions for the pilots: climate control, refrigerator, microwave, and a toilet on request. It fully complies with all the latest safety and ergonomics regulations to ensure that pilots can devote their full attention on doing their job.

It is reassuring to see government trying to revive the economy by investing in improving and developing new infrastructure, especially suburban and urban railway projects. As the freight traffic reduces through the diversion to DFC in the next few years, we believe IR may open further to add additional capacity to run private trains, thereby improving the speed and customer experience with new-generation trains. Initiatives towards supporting 'Sustainable Mobility' both for rail and roadways will gain momentum with emphasis laid on electrified and zero-emission solutions.

As Banerjee sums it up, overall, the outlook of Rail & Metro sector is lucrative.

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