Indian Railways has set a mission to achieve 100% electrification by 2030.

Tilak Raj Seth

- Head - Mobility, Siemens

How has been the performance of Siemens in terms of technological solutions for the use of Indian Railways in last five years? And, what do you think are the major focus areas in the Indian Railways & how do you think can technology be an enabler in this sector?

Growing demand for faster yet economical transport solutions has opened many opportunities. The 4th largest rail network in the world, Indian Railways, has been focusing on increasing capacity, throughput, availability and efficiency. At Siemens, technology is our driving force. We have been partnering Indian Railways since many decades now. Our customer centric approach has helped us support them in their larger mission of 100% rail electrification. Ever increasing need for a comfortable yet economical way of travel and transport, rapid urbanization, the desire for an inter-connected smart transport infrastructure has unfolded many possibilities in last few years. Keeping in mind changing social scenarios and Indian Railways' 'Net Zero' mission, we are working towards faster, accurate, advanced and easily accessible digitalization solutions to address the daily challenges faced by our customers. In these times, when physical inspection is nearly impossible, we are here to offer customized solutions based our strategic pyramid of electrification, automation and digitalization to ensure our customers experience an uninterrupted operation.

Our specific solutions on Rolling stock propulsion for their locomotives, hotel load converters and the signaling solutions are aiding Indian railways meet their aspirations of adding capacity and improving throughput, in addition to the greener aspect of the technology that our solutions bring on the table.

How do you foresee Indian market growing with regards to technological solutions for Railways?

I think we are seeing a major shift towards technology in Indian Railways. Our rail services are a crucial link for India. Growing passenger and freight traffic demands efficient transport infrastructure. Technology plays a vital role in bridging the gap between efficiency and availability. With rising dependence on freight transport and fast developing cities, Indian Railways need to have a robust system to allow more trains to run.  At Siemens, we are focused on resolving these challenges. Our business is based on four strategic pillars. First is enhanced passenger experience. All information available to make travel a pleasant experience via infotainment, food, connectivity etc is based on the advanced technology that connects the large network infrastructure of communications, signaling and availability. The second pillar is guaranteed availability. Our service team is offering high quality maintenance services and working round the clock to ensure uninterrupted rail operations for Indian Railways and metro customers. In these challenging times, in addition to our people based on customer sites, there are people who are supporting remotely and keeping the rail operations on. The third pillar is to make trains and infrastructure intelligent. Every manual process of identifying the performance of the rolling stock could be made available on fingertips. For example, we are working on a smart solution to detect a broken rail track. The technology is such that the customer would be able to take timely decision, do predictive maintenance and prevent accidents. The fourth pillar is increasing value sustainably - this is one of the focus areas for Indian Railways these days. There's an increased emphasis on building a sustainable model for not just the capex period, but for the entire life cycle. To meet this objective, Siemens has built India's first indigenously designed 9000 Hp locomotive with integrated propulsion system and steel tank transformer. The locomotive is currently under trial run.

Technology has taken Indian Railways to new levels since few years and Siemens is working very closely with railways for it. Kindly tell us what steps need to be taken in Indian Railways in terms of electrification and automation?

Indian Railways has set a mission to achieve 100% electrification by the year 2030. As on date, around 35% of this target has been achieved. This is a great start. The pace of rail electrification has increased by 4.5 times from the year 2009 to till date. However, this needs to improve. There are many more challenges to be to be addressed. For example, there must be a concrete plan to monetize the existing number of diesel locomotives which are still in use. Secondly, there's a considerable number of routes which are electrified; however, they need to complete the route. This is also one of the reasons diesel locomotives are still in use in such routes. 

The horse power to trailing load ratio is low in our country with regards to global; norms. This needs to improve if we need to enhance capacity, speed and throughput. CLWs 9000 HP loco with our traction equipment for freight operation, that is already in commercial service is a promising lever in this direction,

Another critical step that Indian Railways needs to take is make the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) in India a credible reality. For this Indian ATP, global level of provenness, yet locally produced, and still having interoperability with international technologies will be an essential and important step. This would need to draw upon the strengths of global experience of companies in India, could have data collation from way side by Balises and having interoperability between India developed solutions and the international ones like Modern Train Control System. There is still some action required to be done here by the authorities.

The Indian government is encouraging public -private participation in this sector to ensure more efficient functioning. How do you see this development?

The experience of the market on PPP has been mixed. While the PPP model is quiet promising considering the targets set by Indian Railways, PPP demands a balance of making an equitable distribution of the risks. India still looks at putting their ridership risk on the private partner, which may be helps in some areas. If the ridership risk is on the government side, then it can be a game-changer for doing business. PPP is a very good step, and if ridership risks are taken by the public authority, then it will catalyze the private participation to an even greater extent.

What do you think are the challenges, especially during this situation of the second wave of Covid19 and new avenues for you in the railway sector?

With rapidly changing COVID-19 scenario across the country, there have been changes in the way we used to work at project sites. Though our work is not impacted much, we have ensured all safety precautions are in place to keep our people safe and deliver uninterrupted customer operations. All COVID essentials such as masks, sanitizers, thermal screening facility and medical facility have been put in place for each of our project sites and our factory in Nashik. We are closely monitoring the situation. At this critical hour we are ensuring that all are able to exhibit extreme caution and responsibility. My appeal to all our colleagues and stakeholders has been to strengthen ourselves with utmost precaution, with responsible COVID-19 responsiveness and getting the medical attention at the earliest on feeling any discomfort.

How upbeat you are about the future business prospects in this vertical?

The infrastructure addition in rail as well as Metro is going on in the spirit of infrastructure addition talked about by both rail and Metro authorities. The speed of implementation as well know can be improved and should be if we are not to be outpaced by ever increasing demand. There are many opportunities in Indian Railways and metro services. We are actively participating in all of them.

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