The London & SE section invite you to their January technical lecture on Indian Railways' KAVACH Automatic Train Protection System.
Indian Railways has prepared a National Rail Plan (NRP) for India – 2030 to create a future ready Railway system. This plan focuses on increasing operational capacity of Indian Railway system by –
i. Increasing average speed of both Passenger and Freight trains as part of Mission Raftaar
ii. Accelerating implementation of critical projects such as Electrification, Speed up gradation
Indian economy greatly depends on Indian Railways (IR) for the mobility of its citizens and goods. 96% of Railway Traffic is carried on Indian Railway High Density Network (HDN) and Highly Used Network (HUN) routes. As part of Vision -2024, IR aims to increase the network capacity (through signaling infrastructure) and average speed of trains on these routes. With the advent of high speed and high density rail network over IR, Safety becomes of paramount importance.
Indian Railways is working to increase safety in train operations. Keeping pace with the new Digital Era, Indian Railways has developed its own indigenous Automatic Train Protection System, named “KAVACH”.
"KAVACH" is an Automatic Train Protection (ATP) System having capability to prevent train accidents caused due to Signal Passed at Danger (SPAD), over speeding etc, by automatic application of the brakes. It would, in addition, also avoid certain other collision like scenarios even in case of non-interlocked or non-signaled territory such as block sections. It also provides assistance to Loco Pilots by means of real-time display of signaling related information such as Movement Authority, Target Speed, Target Distance, and Signal Aspects etc. in Loco Pilot’s cab.
The system is helpful in foggy weather as it provides ahead signaling information to cab driver and builds confidence in driving the train allowing higher train speeds and increased section capacity.
Indian Government has decided to implement KAVACH system across Indian Railways in line with the strategy of adopting a National ATP system for Hon’ble PM vision of Atma Nirbhar Bharat (Self-Reliant India) starting with first 3,000 Route kilometers carrying 95% of rail traffic and then over other HDN and HUN routes.
KAVACH system is currently deployed over 1500 Route kilometer and almost 100 locomotives and the performance has been found overall satisfactory. KAVACH has played a significant role in increasing operational safety over the routes over which it is deployed. The presentation aims to cover an overview of KAVACH system, different phases through its development, experience of Indian Railways during first field deployment of KAVACH and lesson learned the easy and hard way which has led to system improvements.
The presenter, Priya Agrawal, is currently working with Indian Railways, Govt. of India. She has varied experience in Signaling & Telecommunication within the rail industry, working for over 13 years in areas of modern signaling technologies including automatic train protection systems, axle counters, electronic interlocking, etc. She has played an active role in the design and development of KAVACH, an Indian Automatic Train Protection System. She has commissioned the first 250Rkm of KAVACH system and is actively involved in commissioning of next 1200Rkm over South Central Railway.
She has expertise in Signal Design and is currently leading a team of design engineers for Project Organization of South Central Railway. She also holds vast experience in Railway procurements, Tendering, Planning, and Project Execution and has spearheaded several signaling projects. She is an avid writer and has published several articles in International Rail Industry Magazines. She has an MBA in Operations and Strategy, M. Tech in VLSI Design and B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering.
This will be an on-line presentation using GotoMeeting - Please register directly via Eventbrite. Details on how to access the presentation will be sent before the meeting to those that register. Please register before 1700 GMT on 19 January.
Please contact the London & SE section directly for any questions via londonse@irse.org