Finding the way: enhancing user experience through effective signages at crowded railway stations in India

Video surveillance systems used in places such as airports, train stations or different public spaces, can bring security to an upper level. The video surveillance systems that are used for security reasons require more intellectual and more robust technical directives. The proposed work compares different methods to detect abandoned baggage in a public area as well as introduces an abandoned luggage detection system for places like railway stations in India. With worries about worldwide security on the ascent, it has turned out to be crucial to have set up proficient risk recognition frameworks that can identify and perceive possibly risky circumstances, and alert the authorities to make a suitable move. This work depicts a framework that perceives the event of somebody leaving baggage unattended in railway stations either intentionally or mistakenly. As tracking of intentionally left baggage is a major problem as it imposes serious security risks in countries like India which has world's largest railway system. Also, proper tracking of mistakenly left baggage is another issue to resolve. The proposed system invokes an alarm whenever it encounters a left baggage as well as generates information about the baggage: its color, date and time when the baggage was left.

At the August 1864 opening ceremony for the East Indian Railway (EIR) through-line from Calcutta, a massive crowd gathered spontaneously in Delhi to witness the new technology. The local authorities allowed the river Jamuna to be crossed toll free and declared a public holiday. The Government's Consulting Engineer, Richard de Bourbel, viewed from the railway station, ‘…a continuous stream of locals emerging from the fort of Selimghur on the other side of the Jamuna, passing over the bridge of boats and extending past the railway station … for two miles down the line’. Despite this initial interest, railways faced a difficult first two decades of operation in the United Provinces (UP, now known as Uttar Pradesh) in northern India. The flat, densely populated valley, or Doab (area between two rivers), of the Ganges and Jamuna rivers served by the EIR was described by the railway promoter and pamphleteer, WP Andrew as, ‘the best portion of country, perhaps in the globe’ for a railway. Later, the EIR was to become the most profitable railway in India, paying dividends of 10 per cent and contributing hugely to Government revenues. However, before the mid-1870's it failed frequently to repay the 5 per cent return on capital that was guaranteed to shareholders by the Government of India or to create new bulk traffic, except for carriage of coal for use on the railway itself. The Oudh and Rohilkhand (O&R), the second railway built in the UP, was even less successful and was a constant drain on Government finances. Wholesale diversion of long and medium distance traffic from river and alternative land channels and creation of new bulk commerce did not occur until the 1880s.

Enormous growth of population has been observed in recent years and the number of passengers is traveling by the Indian railway has been increased significantly during the pilgrim season due to rapid urbanization. Pedestrian traffic is an important aspect of traffic handled by the Indian railways, because of competitive tariffs with other modes of transports, the comfort of travel, and speed of connectivity. The present study is carried out in the Kerala state railway stations under the categories of A1(NSG2), and A (NSG3) which has the highest annual passenger of boarding and alighting are recorded. Pedestrian flows are taken with the help of recorded video graphic footage on the railway station premises. The studies carried out in the pedestrian parameters and estimate the capacity of pedestrian flow involve a variety of pedestrians such as era, sexuality, belongings carried by the pedestrian, schedule of a train as well at entry and exit passageway of stairways with the help of Indo-HCM 2017 and NFPA 130, 2020 also to analyses the level of service of a pedestrian with the fundamental diagrams of the pedestrian flow vs speed, speed vs density, flow vs density, and space vs speed are developed. The discoveries of this study are expected to be fruitful for civic bodies, railway protection force, policymakers, the public, and other stakeholders to design a solution working on the idea of world elegance railway stations.

The transportation planning of Indian Railways has become increasingly complex due to the growing population and increasing demand for mobility. To develop an efficient and effective last-mile transportation system, it is important to identify the extent of the influence zone of railway stations. This can guide policy decisions and infrastructure development. This research paper focuses on mapping the influence zones of 40 railway stations across the Northern Railway Division of India. It uses the travel length frequency distribution to analyze the distribution of passengers’ travel distances. The study shows that influence zones for railway stations vary significantly based on their hierarchy level. Higher-hierarchy stations tend to have larger and more dispersed influence zones, while those of lower-hierarchy stations tend to be smaller and more localized. The findings can be used to guide the expansion of existing stations and the improvement of transportation services. Overall, this study provides a valuable contribution to the field of transportation planning for Indian Railways. It demonstrates the importance of influence zone mapping in developing an efficient and effective transportation system.

The pressure on the Indian railway (IR) networks has increased due to higher demand for mobility and growth in India’s population over past several decades. In order to meet the higher demand, IR has put priority in capacity building by increasing the number of coaches per train, running more trains, and building more tracks. Building more tracks or increasing the number of coaches or increasing the number of trains have the potential to solve the problem with high infrastructure cost. Unfortunately, it also comes with added vulnerability in safety in running the system. IR with its investment of over 5,00,000 Cr is presently struggling to make its Operating ratio (expenditure / earning) below 100 %. During the last 166 years of its operation, much technological input has been made on its Infrastructure, Locomotives and Rolling stock but its Train Control practices have remained Conventional – locally controlled and experience-based. The developments in the area of signal processing, communication systems, and artificial intelligence (AI) etc. have great potential for applications in Indian Railway right from ticketing to movement of trains, maintenance etc. The potential of AI has been felt in different applications like predicting delays, preventive maintenance of tracks and rolling stocks, forecasting algorithm for the railway systems. The use of AI in the operation of IR will improve performance by using clever algorithms with efficient software and hardware. This in turn will provide lower latency with information sharing and the use of AI in rail operation will surely improve the efficiency in train operation. This paper highlights the potential contributions of AI in improving the operation of India’s railway system and how the application of recent technological advancement in Information Science and Artificial Intelligence can bring a change in the train operation scenario at a railway station and Control Centre and add to the profitability of Indian Railways.

This study aims to investigate how the English Language used by the Indian Railways is different from other registers of English, and most importantly what is the effect of this register of English upon the common people. In other words, the present study aims at viewing the variety of language used by the Indian Railway as an independent register. For the purpose of investigation, a stylistic analysis is carried out. The data for the current study are collected from the platform, directives at railway premises and inside the railway-coaches. Platform announcements have been collected from various railway stations across the country. Some amount of data has been collected from the directives inside the railway coaches.

Sign system is a media information that help people to find their way or destination in an environment. Good sign system can be understood by viewer through the information and visualization indeed. Some of public location that craves sign system is a railway station. However as a high accessibility place, actually railway station has many activities in there, like to buy tickets, waiting for the train, obtaining information operational and others. All of that are needed sign system. Kiaracondong Railway Station as one of well known stations in West Java that had plenty visitors. But, the media information like sign system in there is not yet enough to fulfill the visitors requirement, such as some of them are broken, unsupported materials, the visibility and letter size are not standard measure, and minimum quantity sign system.For more clearly this case, it will be required to aggregation and review the data. Actually, the methods that to be used such as directly observation to station area, collecting theoretical data, share some questionnaire to visitors, make an interview to officers, comparing with several similar projects, and matrix analysis.So based on the situation and data management, we need to redesign the sign system with good integration in Kiaracondong Railway Station for help visitors in railway station to acquire their needs like informations and navigations. In other goal, the redesign sign system can be increase the image of PT KAI in business transportation.

Service sector in India consists of a wide variety of services such as electricity, water supply, road, rail and air transport etc which provides a vast opportunities for HRD. Indian Railways is the backbone of service sector and one of the biggest employers in India. Indian Railways is one of the gigantic public undertakings enriched with fixed assets. viz: 64015 Route Kilometers, 7030 Railway Stations while the Railway Bridges are 1,30,776 in number. About 29 percent of total route kilometers has electrification network in Indian Railways. The Indian Railways Fleet is substantial with 4963 Diesel Traction, and 3586 Electrical Traction, while 2, 11,763 Wagons, and 49110 Passenger service Vehicles. The total strength of Human Resource in Indian Railways is at 13.28 Lakhs during the year 2010-11. The Medical and Health services of employees are taken care with the help of 121 Hospitals and 586 Health units. Apart from that the 133 private hospitals recognized for medical treatment also do render the yeomen services. About 46 percent of the employees are provided with Railway Accommodation facilities. The total area of 4.31 lakhs in hectares of Land is the hallmark of Indian Railways. Indian Railways carried 19 million passengers and 2.29 million tons of freight each day during the year 2008-09. The Railway Board synchronizes of scare resources with the help of Human Resource in Indian Railways. Human resource helps not only in tapping the fixed and scare resources of organization in an effective and efficient way but also in attaining the goals of organization in a rapid manner. In fact, they are the real assets of Indian Railways. Hence, the present paper proposes to examine on Human Resource Management--A study of Indian Railways since 1950-51 to 2010-11. It concluded that the total costs of Human Resource reduce is substantial at Rs.3,273.46 crore during the above study period. In forthcoming 5 years the Human Resource strength may further decline in Indian Railways and in turn the Human Resource strength might be as low as 12 Lakhs by 2014-15.

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss a methodology to evaluate the component-level contributions for individual attributes of service quality at Indian railway stations. This can be used toward prioritizing the railway station facilities for their improvements that will lead to higher passenger satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach – Individual component-level analysis has been carried out for the different attributes with an aim to improve service quality through passenger satisfaction study (user perspective). The component-level analysis is Step II subsequent to Step I that determined the degree of dissatisfaction of passengers at attribute level. Findings – It is found that “adequacy,” “visibility of the system,” and “time of travel” are the key components to be addressed to improve satisfaction in security system having 52 percent variance in response explained through these components. Similarly “functional amenities,” “adequate station furniture,” and “sanitation” explain 49 percen...

The overall efficiency of transit operation depends on effective operation of various facilities like transit units, transfer stations and access infrastructure. Stairways at transit stations are vital links between different interconnected elements like platforms and foot over bridges. Transfer rate of pedestrians through stairway primarily depends on its geometric design. Many previous studies have reported that the stairway dimensions such as stair gradient, height of riser and length of stairway influence walking speed significantly. The walking speed is also governed by the space available to the individual pedestrian. The movement will be restricted with reduction in space and hence, in principal it depends on the width of the facility. In order to understand the effect of available space on the pedestrian flow characteristics, present study has been carried out at six stairways with different dimensions at two railway stations; one suburban rail transit and the other intercity railway station in India. Total 32 310 pedestrian data points are collected using video-graphic technique and has been used to develop the fundamental relationships of pedestrian flow using single-regime and two-regime models particularly for speed–flow relationship. The results also show that flowrate and walking speed increase with increase in width of stairway. Further, walking speed variation pattern is analyzed in three density regimes. Speed reduces gradually with increase in density and reduction in space. At both the stations, compared with the smaller stairway, maximum flow and walking speed are observed for wider stairway. The study establishes that the average walking speed, flow and density are more influenced by width of stairway than other dimensions. The results of this study will be useful in planning, design and management of facility of stairways at railway stations and can also be used in finding safe evacuation time.

Analysis of Flow Characteristics and Step Size of Escalators at Metro Stations

This study proposes a hybrid multiple criteria decision making (MCDM) methodology for evaluating the performance of the Indian railway stations (IRS). Since the customers are heterogeneous and their requirements are often imprecise, the evaluation process is a critical step for prioritizing the IRS. To improve the existing approaches, an efficient evaluation technique has been proposed by integrating rough numbers, analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and multi-attribute border approximation area comparison (MABAC) methods in rough environment. The relative criteria weights based on their preferences given by experts is determined by rough AHP whereas evaluation of the alternatives based on these criteria are done by the modified rough MABAC method. A case study of prioritizing different railway stations in India is provided to demonstrate the efficiency and applicability of the proposed method. Among different criteria “proactively” is observed to be the most important criteria in our analysis, followed by ‘Railfanning’ and ‘DMO’ is found to be the best among the forty IRS in this study. Finally, a comparative analysis and validity testing of the proposed method are elaborated and the methodology provides a standard to select IRS on the basis of different criteria.

India has ratified the Paris agreement and also committed in its Intended Nationally Determined Contributions(INDC) that it will reduce it's emissions intensity of its Gross Domestic Product by 33 to 35 percent by 2030 from its 2005 level. Indian Railways(IR) played a lead role in the Conference of Parties held in Paris on climate change in December 2015. As a part of Railways' INDC, IR has committed to reduce its emission intensity to the extent of 32% by 2030 by taking series of energy efficiency initiatives [1]. India being the 4th largest green house gas emitter has made a commitment to reduce its Green house Gas emissions in its National Action Plan on Climate Change. National Mission on Energy Efficiency (NMEE) has been instrumental in managing the Energy related efforts towards sustainability. Perform, Achieve and Trade(PAT) is the flagship scheme of NMEE where improvements in Specific Energy Consumption of identified Designated Consumers is contributing to reduction in the Energy in the demand side. Indian Railways is also one of the sectors identified to participate in PAT Scheme. Indian Railways consumed over 17.5 billion kWhr which accounts to 1.8% of total Indian Electricity consumption. Indian Railways paid about Rs 10,000 crore towards electricity charges. Traction constitutes 85% and non-traction constitutes 15% of the energy consumption. In 2014–15, Railways consumed about 2.5 billion units for non-traction electric power with average cost of power of about Rs 6.50 per unit. The initial assessments have brought out that on non-traction side lighting consumes about 25–40%, water pumping 30–35%, fans about 15% and air-conditioning about 10–15% energy. This paper is an in-depth analysis of the Best Available Energy Efficiency options for implementing in Indian Railway stations. Effort is made to provide a library of Energy Audit recommendations applicable to non-traction energy use.

Population growth is directly related to transportation connectivity. In India, transport facilities are primarily served by Indian Railways. The work “OFFLINE TRAIN TRACKING SYSTEM” works on transmitter receiver-based logic. Transmitters are installed at stations and receivers are installed inside trains. When the train comes within range of the transmitter, the receiver receives the signal and displays the station name on the LCD screen. Transmitters installed at stations operate on 230 V AC and receivers in trains operate on 9 V DC. Work is not manually controlled. If the transmitter is on and the receiver is receiving the signal. Then, the station name is automatically displayed on the display. The work is not manually controlled. When the transmitter is ON and the receiver receives signals from transmitter, then the display unit automatically displays the station name. NRF Transceiver is used in both railway station and train. Lora transceiver can also be used in place of NRF transceiver module, it has the range of 2.5 Km, and it can be more helpful in the case of early projection of forthcoming station. NRF transceiver has the range of 500 meters. It is not expensive and effective in nature. Lora transceiver is expensive and more effective than NRF module. Microcontroller is used in this project, and it is programmed with Embedded C. LCD Display and voice alert is installed with the microcontroller. As the transceiver in the station gives area information to the transceiver located in the train, the microcontroller projects the station name in the display and voice alert is also installed.

Determining passenger satisfaction out of platform-based amenities: A study of Kanpur Central Railway Station