The Western Railway decided to cover Mumbai Central-Ahmadabad/ Ratlam route by ‘KAVACH. When this technology is used, the train will automatically stop when it detects another train on the same line within a certain distance. Trains will also come to a halt if the digital system detects any manual errors or other malfunctions.
“Estimated cost of this project Rs 311.36 crores. It’s includes Mumbai-Vadodara-Ahmedabad and Vadodara- Ratlam-Nagda section of WR” said an officials of WR adding that in order to ensure safety over high speed and high density railway networks of Indian railway implementation of Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) is need of hour.
This project will be completed in four phases. Conferming the development a senior officials of WR said, “Revised tender for the implementation Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) on the Virar-Vadodara section, Vadodara- Ahmedabad section and Vadodara- Ratlam-Nagda section being floated in next week. Apart from that tender of TCAS of Mumbai central-Virar section shall be floated in current month”.
According to Railways, KAVACH is SIL4 certified. Also known as the Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) or the Automatic Train Protection (ATP) system, KAVACH is aimed at achieving the Railways’ goal of “zero accidents.”
“Train Collision Avoidance System ( TCAS) being implemented on Indian Railways has been designed in a manner to prevent Signal Passing at Danger (SPAD) cases, unsafe situations arising due to over speed and train collisions in station area as well as block section” said an officer of WR .
“This system will provide continuous update of movement authority ( Distance upto which the train is permitted to travel without danger). Hence during unsafe situations when brake application is necessitated, and the Crew has either failed to do so, or is not in position to do so, automatic brake application shall take place. TCAS has additional features to display information like speed, location distance to signal ahead, signal aspects etc in loco pilots cab and generation of auto and manual SOS messages from loco as well as station unit in case of emergency” he said.
When it is implemented, it will automatically bring train movement to a halt when it detects another train on the same line within a predetermined distance. Trains will also come to a complete stop on their own if the digital system detects any manual error, such as “jumping” the red signal or any other malfunction, according to a WR senior officer.
“The system includes a stationary equipment to gather signalling inputs and loco inputs and transmits to loco console, radio system for communication with locos and the station, master interface and GPS for time synchronisation, loco equipment to gather inputs from RFID reader and tags and from the station, speedometer, brake interface unit, in-cab display of signal aspect, alarms, alerts and SOS buttons, radio and antenna for communication with stations and other locos” further added officials. The focus of Indian railway is to increase capacity utilization of existing assets including rolling stock and track infrastructure