Railways saw least number of accidents in last two and half years: Goyal

"The last 2.5 years have been the safest in the history of Indian Railways. There have been least number of accidents in the last 2.5 years", the minister said

The last 2.5 years have been safest in the history of Indian Railways as there has been least number of accidents during this period, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Replying to supplementaries during the Question Hour, the minister also said a Real-time Train Information System (RTIS) developed in collaboration with the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is being installed on locomotives for automatic acquisition of train movement timings at stations, including arrival and departure or run-through.

They get automatically plotted on the control chart of those trains in the Control Office Application (COA) system, he said.

Assuring members that Railways have taken steps to ensure safety and improve infrastructure, he said, "The last 2.5 years have been the safest in the history of Indian Railways. There have been least number of accidents in the last 2.5 years."

Goyal said RTIS gives mid-section updates with a periodicity of 30 seconds and the Train Controllers can now track the location and speed of RTIS enabled locomotives/train more closely, without any manual intervention, which helps in improving the efficiency of train control.

"This real time data of RTIS is also linked with the National Train Enquiry System (NTES). Now more accurate train running information is being passed to passengers, which helps them conveniently plan their arrival at the stations.

"Further, it is extremely handy for emergency messaging from locomotive to control centre, helping in faster response in case of any breakdown or disaster," he said in his written reply.

The minister said originally, RTIS was planned to be installed in 2700 locomotives.

Additional funds for installation of RTIS in 6000 more locomotives have been sanctioned in 2019, he told members.