1. Introduction
As we move from the 21^st century to the 22^nd century, one aspect of our day-to-day life, which is changing most drastically, is speed. As Alvin Toffler so aptly wrote in his book “Future Shock” that while our grandfathers were not prone to go out of their village in their entire lifetime, in this generation we move from one place to another, either on business or in pleasure, at a fantastic pace. This means that there is a tremendous pressure on “Mode of Transport” to shift a lot of people quickly, regularly and safely from one place to another. Over a period of years “Railways” has been a very effective mode of transport. This is most highlighted in India, which boasts of one of the largest Railway networks in the World. Not only people but Indian Railways also carries an enormous amount of goods and materials on a daily basis. It carries more than a million tones of freight and 14 million passengers covering 6856 stations daily, with such intensity, it is but natural that the Railway network has to be adequately protected in terms of its safety, regularity & timeliness.

2. Rail disasters- An over view:
While technology advancement allows us to make faster & faster trains and lack of growth in infrastructure forces us to put more trains on the some tracks, Rail accidents are growing at an alarming rate.

India's massive rail network is hit by an average of 300 accidents a year. The train disasters are spatial events happening as a result of range of factors like human error, antiquated communication and safety equipment, signaling systems, ageing bridges and tracks, increase in passenger and freight traffic and sometimes natural calamities have led to rail accidents. Out of these range of factors most of them can be avoided by the proper planning and implementation of systematic approach with the utilisation of latest developments in the GIS and GPS technology. The rescue operations can be effectively implemented with the aid of GIS as Disaster management tool.

3. An integrated GIS&GPS approach:
The conventional signaling and rail traffic management can be enhanced with the integration of latest GIS and GPS technology. The existing conventional signaling system most of the times relay on the oral communication through telephonic and telegraphic conversations as input for the decision making in track allocation for trains. There is large scope for miscommunication of the information or communication gap due to the higher human interference in the system. This miscommunication may lead to wrong allocation of the track for trains, which ultimately leads to the train collision. The statistics in the developing countries showing that 80% of worst collisions occurred so far is due to either human error or incorrect decision making through miscommunication in signaling and its implementation.

The real time viewing of actual current positions of the trains at various locations is possible with the continuous tracking of rail traffic with the Geographic Positional System equipment installed in the trains. The latest developments in the GPS technology will give the positional accuracy of nearly 2m. Practically speaking these accuracy levels may not suffice to locate the train on exact particular track on which the train is actually travelling. But the real time dynamic location information provided by GPS equipment can be utilised as the input for the signaling system to aid as the refinement tool for decision making in allotment of the track for trains. The scope for the human error can be eliminated by effective utilisation of integrated system as a cross check measure against the decision of signal and also can be continuously monitor the system even after implementing the decision with reference to the dynamic viewing of the real time movement of the trains on the track.



3.1. Proposed approach for signaling system

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