The proposed system contains two major components of Geographic Information system. The static data contains detailed mapping of the rail net work as a spatial database in GIS platform. The Dynamic data regarding the movement of rail traffic collected through the GPS equipment installed in train, signaling cabin and station supervisor’s cabin. The GIS enabled “Rail tracing system” takes the input signals from the near by GPS installed in trains and continuously displays the positions of the trains in the vicinity of the interested area to enable the decision makers of signaling to view the realistic situation.



This dynamic viewing of realistic position of the trains avoids dependency of the signaling crew only on the oral communication. Thus the human error in communication can be minimised. For further enhancement of the system the signaling decisions taken by the crew can be crosschecked with the continuous monitoring of real time data available with in the system by any superior prior to implement the decision.

In future the advancements in the GPS technology may give further enhancement to this approach as the accuracy in the locational resolution greatly improving day by day. The scope of the application will be further refined to a level of locating the train on its particular track if the accuracy levels further improved to less than 1m. Then the continuous monitoring of rail traffic on track wise basis can be possible to implement full pledged and automated traffic controlling and signaling system to improve the standards of safety in rail transportation.

4. GIS as sophisticated tool for rescue management system:
Even though by implementing all possible precautionary measures in improving the safety standards of rail network the occurrence of train accidents might not be ruled out. Accidents on the network are frequent, exceeding 300 per year. However, this can be seen in the context of the massive scale of the operation. In the year 1996-97, the actual accident rate was 0.51 per million kilometers. Year by year the rate of accidents is increasing. The most of the factors leads to accidents might not be controlled by human being by their nature of unpredictability and complexity.

This notwithstanding, when accidents do happen they can be catastrophic in their toll of human life. This has provoked public concern over safety. This is the right time to think in the direction of enhancing the disaster management and rescue implementation operations with aid of latest developments in the science and technology. Definitely the spatial and non-spatial database handling capabilities of GIS can be utilised to improve the speed and accuracy in decision making and implementing the rescue strategies.

The critical elements in Disaster management and Rescue planning & implementation are time and input data availability. The right decision taken at the right time from the right information sources leads to practically feasible and efficiently implementable plans and activities. Locating the site of accident, the accessibility information to the site, availability of the required resources for rescue operations in the vicinity, simple means of alarming the resources to initiate the rescue operations, finding out the optimum routes between the resource locations and site of accident etc. are major concerns in the disaster management and rescue planning.

The optimal decision making and effective rescue planning requires easily accessible accurate data base regarding the required resources in the event of accidents. The inaccuracies in the data may lead to delay in the implementation of the rescue activities. Hence the database associated in such crucial activities should assure that the updating activities could be done at regular intervals with minimum time and effort.

Definitely the real time viewing of the geographic data along with required attribute information will enhance the speed and accuracy in planning and decision-making activities.

The core of the system architecture built up with two different database one for spatial data containing the rail network, road net work with inter connectivity details, state capitals, District head quarters, major and minor towns, revenue and administrative boundaries, water bodies etc. The non-spatial database contains the information about the various resources available at each geographic location i.e. city or town or District head quarters and their contact information. The spatial database will provide the smooth and easy access to different locations to find out the site of accident and its neighborhoods. While the non-spatial data gives the detailed information about the location and its neighborhood to minimise the time factor in formulating the rescue strategy and smooth as well as fast alarming of the authorities concerned to improve the effectiveness of the rescue operations. The system always establishes dynamic link between these databases to improve the operating efficiency of the system.

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