RAILWAYS: Elevated corridor planning done with the help of drones in Kanpur.

The objective was to find out the direction and alignment of a 17km long railway corridor from Kanpur Central to Bhimsen station.

Terms used:

Railway corridor: It is generally a linear (or curved) area of rail lines which supports transportation of people and goods.

Alignment: The horizontal and vertical layout and direction of the railway line.

Level Crossing: A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road or path at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using a bridge or tunnel.

ROB: ROB refers to road over bridges.

Pier: Piers are the vertical structures which support the bridges, railway corridors etc.

ROW: Referred to as “Right of way”, it reserves the right over a piece of land granted to an authority A over that land (owned by B) for the purposes of maintenance and expansion of highways, railways, footpath etc. For e.g. 100m ROW refers to 100 meters of land parallel to the railway line (in this case), on both sides.

Background

Kanpur is the 12th most populous city in India and is located in the state of Uttar Pradesh. Kanpur Central is one of the five Central railway stations in India and is one of the busiest railway stations in the country with more than 230 trains crossing the station every day. It also holds the record for the largest interlocking route system in the world along with Delhi station. To manage the ever growing number of trains and passengers, Indian Railways decided to build a railway corridor from Kanpur Central to Bhimsen railway station.

Problems

Finding out the possible alignment from Kanpur Central to Bhimsen station, Indian Railways faced following challenges:

1. Congestion: The region is densely populated and congested which means there is an unavailability of land where railway lines can be laid. Thus, it was decided that elevated corridor should be constructed.
2. Multiple ROBs: There are six existing roads over bridges (ROBs) along the track, and the new elevated corridor has to pass over all of them at a sufficient height.
3. Pier location: Due to unavailability of space, optimum locations for installing the piers on the ground to support the elevated corridor had to be selected
4. Rehabilitation: Houses and other infrastructures under the proposed railway alignment need to be rehabilitated from their existing place.
5. Land acquisition: This is the process where railway authorities acquire the land from the land owners to construct the railway corridors. Most of the times, it is the single biggest reason for the delay in project completion.

It is becoming ever challenging and costly to finalise alignment with the conventional process of ground surveying and paper-based data. Hence, Indian Railways decided to do an aerial survey of the entire corridor using drones.

One of the ROBs in Kanpur Central to Bhimsen railway corridor. (Taken from Felix, Indshine’s visualisation platform)

Execution Methodology

We used a hexacopter drone to fly over the entire region and captured a total of 1775 high-resolution images. Besides, we took a total of 21 ground control points (GCPs) using DGPS to accurately estimate elevation profiles with respect to the real world around it. We used photogrammetry techniques to merge those images so as to create an orthomosaic and digital surface model. We integrated orthomosaic and DSM seamlessly into one deliverable such that we can now measure distances, find out the heights, as well as create elevation profiles on the map.

Solutions

We delivered the following solutions to ease the process of planning.

1. A high-resolution map (orthomosaic) of entire 17 km length with 120m Right of way, to help all the stakeholders visualise the lay of the land in that region and find out the possible alignment options.
2. Elevation profiles of proposed alignments from the ground level at 10m intervals. This helped IR to calculate gradients of alignment.
3. Plotted graph of chainage vs elevation to visualise clearance between ROBs, proposed alignment and the ground. One of the graph is shown below.
4. Overlay of all the alignment options (proposed by design consultants) on the orthomosaic.
5. Superimposed land boundary on the orthomosaic to find out where and how much land needs to be acquired. This helped them to calculate land acquisition cost, plane rehabilitations, estimate location of piers.

Conclusion

As a result, we helped the Indian Railways to evaluate the feasibility of the proposed alignment. Take a look at the elevation profile of the proposed alignment (marked blue in colour), with respect to the ground level (marked orange in colour). The spikes in orange colour denote the buildings or trees or any other structures build on the ground.

Elevation profile of Proposed Alignment(Blue) and Existing Ground Level(Orange) with respect to Chainage

Proposed Alignment

Gallery

Look at some of the locations where alignment of the elevated corridor is passing over the ground, and get a feel of how it will look like after its construction.

About Indshine

Indshine provides enterprise drone solutions to highways, railways, mining, smart city, power transmission, forestry etc. Please visit www.indshine.com to know more. If you have any query or want a demo, kindly drop us an email at info@indshine.com.