The Indian Railways, a statutory board of the Ministry of Railways, will deploy video surveillance systems (VSS) at 756 prominent railway stations across the country by 2023. RailTel has been appointed by the Ministry to complete installing the VSS, which comes equipped with high-resolution CCTV cameras with a footage storage capacity of more than a month.
CCTV cameras of stations and video feeds will be monitored at three levels for enhanced safety and security at these railways. The system consists of artificial intelligence (AI)-enabled video analytics and facial recognition software, which could aid in detecting known criminals. It can trigger an alert when they enter the premises.
A Network Management System (NMS) will be used to monitor cameras, servers, UPS, and switches. All the data can be viewed from any web browser by authorised personnel. Four types of IP cameras- dome, bullet, pan tilt zoom, and ultra-HD (4K) will be deployed.
Authorities said they would fast-track appointing executing agencies. All the CCTV cameras will be networked on optical-fibre cable and the video feed of the CCTV cameras will be displayed at local RPF posts and centralised CCTV control rooms at divisional and zonal levels as well. The cameras will capture activity in waiting halls, reservation counters, parking areas, main entrances and exits, platforms, foot-over bridges, and booking offices, according to the Railway Ministry. Ashwini Vaishnav, the Railway Minister, was quoted as saying, “We need to rapidly absorb new technology in Railways, be it for rolling stock, construction, safety, cybersecurity, or in situations where there is a human interface”.
The application of technology in public transportation in India is increasing rapidly. Last year, the Kerala Rail Development Corporation (KRDC) signed a memorandum of understanding with a start-up incubated at the Indian Institute for Science (IISc) to use sensing technology to make its railways safer, especially on vulnerable terrains. The technology is based on optical light and works on the principle of wavelength shifts.
The structural health monitoring system (SHMS) will monitor the civil engineering structures of the Kerala Rail’s Silverline project, under which the two ends of the state will be connected by a semi-high-speed rail corridor from Kasaragod to Thiruvananthapuram. Using the Fibre Bragg Grating (FBG)-sensor-driven monitoring system, rail corporations can embed or attach sensors in rail structures, enabling both on-demand and continuous data, as well as 24/7 warning alerts for damage detection. The technology can also be customised for each structure and location. It will increase safety in settlement-prone and flood-prone locations and heavy rainfall areas.
This year, Tamil Nadu launched an AI-enabled panic button and CCTV surveillance project to make travel safer. The initiative will be implemented in phases, aiming to cover 2,500 buses in Chennai city. Under the first phase, 500 buses in the metro city have installed four panic buttons, an AI-enabled mobile network video recorder (MNVR), and three cameras each.
As reported on OpenGov Asia, the MNVR will be connected to a cloud-based control centre via a 4G GSM SIM card. In case of inconvenience, discomfort, or threat, passengers will be able to press the panic button and record the incident. At the same time, an alarm will go off at the control centre along with a video recording of the incident on the bus. The operator at the control centre will be able to monitor the situation and facilitate, in real-time, the next course of action. It will also help detect missing persons and identify criminals.