Managing Mumbai Suburban Train System through ICT initiative

The Mumbai (Central Railway) Suburban train system, operating approx. 1470 trains & handling approx. 3.5 Lakh passengers daily, is a high density, high turnaround complex network which demands extremely fast & efficient train control system. The manual control is slow, tedious and stressful. It requires a lot of manpower and doesn‟t involve holistic operational management. The conventional train control system is inadequate to handle the commuters‟ ever increasing demand of more trains / timely information. The Train Management System on ChatrapatiShivaji Terminus – Kalyan section of Central Railway, uses the latest Information & Communication Technology and accomplishes Train Control & Information dissemination automatically. Train movement data is picked up from the stations through high-speed modems and fed to a centralized UNIX server, which commands the train movement and triggers the passenger information system. This has increased punctuality & efficiency of train operations, facilitated running more trains and enhanced passenger satisfaction. Keywords: Train Management System, Train Chart, Centralized Train Control, General Command Handler, Train describer system.