human safety

Indian Railways is wide and extensive network that runs through almost all kinds of terrain. It passes thorough forests as well as cities which makes it's tracks more prone to danger. Sometimes there may be animal crossing tracks, or maybe due to some storm a tree may have fallen and blocked the tracks. It may also have there may be cracks in the rails. to solve this problem i wish to create a robot that will help in maintenance of tracks. 

Railways

INTERVIEW WITH MR. Suresh Kumar
POST: Senior Goods Guard Manager at Indian Railways
Q1. How does maintenance of tracks pose a huge problem?
Ans. Maintenance of rails poses various problems such as –
A. Most common is falling of trees on tracks.
B. Animals and people crossing tracks makes the pilot apply harsh breaks which damages both train and tracks.
C. Fog in winters disturbs the vision of the pilot and hence forces him to slow down the speed of the train. When the train moves at slower speed their grip on rails decreases.
D. Cracks on the tracks can lead to derailment.
E. There can be stones on the tracks which need to be removed.

Q2. Please provide some examples or experiences of the same.
Ans. Many a times when I travel during winters the trains usually get delayed or move at a slower pace. Once I was travelling and man jumped in front of the train.Since the train had just left the station it was at low speed and hence the pilot decided to pull a sudden break which lead to detachment of the last coach. Thankfully it had only the goods and no passengers in that coach.
Q3. Is there anything that solves this? Why isn’t it used?
Ans. The engineering department at the Railways is trying to come with better ways to manage their tracks but there is not much advancement.
Q4. How much would you pay to fix it?
Ans. Every problem has different costs. Usually there are people of removing fallen trees from the tracks and to remove stones and pebbles on the tracks that might cause problems.

Falling of trees on tracks.

People removing trees from tracks while train is delayed.

Cracks on tracks

Animals sitting or crossing tracks.

People crossing tracks.

SOLUTION:

We would like to create a robot the would be used for maintenance of tracks: checking for cracks, presence of animals and humans,fallen trees etc.It would include various sensors like ultrasonic sensors,thermal sensor,camera etc.It would send message to the railway control room such that relevant measures can be taken,