RAILWAYS: How Indian railways used Indshine’s cloud platform and UAV Tech to reduce train delays

The objective of the survey was to eliminate delay due to congestion of trains at six major railway junctions and minimize the cost of the project by proposing new railway chord lines.

OVERVIEW

We all have experienced delay in trains due to the congestion of trains at major railway junctions, the trains have to pass through the junctions although having a short halt at the station. To manage the ever growing train congestion Indian Railways decided to build railway bypasses at six major railway junctions viz. Sawai Madhopur, Itarsi, Guna, Ruthiyai, Kachpura and Ramganj Mandi Stations.

PROBLEMS

Construction of a new railway line brings on many challenges, Few of those while deciding the best possible alignment and the detailed design of railway bypasses are:

1. Land Acquisition: Land acquisition is the process of acquiring the privately owned land for construction of rail line, it is the most redundant reason of delays in infrastructure projects.
2. Rehabilitation: Buildings and structures coming in the alignment are to be demolished and the residents has to be shifted to another place. The proposed alignment has been chosen so as to minimize the rehabilitation process and demolish bare minimum structures as possible.
3. Cost Reduction: To reduce the construction cost of the new railway line by cutting off the land acquisition, Earthwork cost, New Structures and rehabilitation cost.
4. Clashes with Existing Rail Line: There were existing railway lines to be connected with the proposed bypass line and other railway lines to be constructed in the same area.
5. Level Crossings: Indian Railways is eliminating all the existing Level crossings to reduce the number of accidents by constructing ROB/RUB/LHS. Zero level crossing has been proposed in the design of bypass lines to reduce the no of accidents.
6. Digitization: All the land records, existing line alignment and other data available with railways is mostly in the form of paper-based documents. For better collaboration and for future perspective the data has to be in digital format.

Taking the above challenges into account Indian Railways decided to go for aerial survey using drones for better collaboration and faster outputs.

INDSHINE’S SOLUTION

We used a quad-copter drone to fly over the entire region of 50 KM stretch and captured a total of 8228 high-resolution images and a total of 95 ground control points (GCPs). We used photogrammetry technique to merge and scale those images to generate an orthomosaic and digital elevation model. Then we used advanced tools for planning the best possible alignment and generated proposed alignment plan, proposed longitudinal profile and cross sections along with earthwork quantity estimation report. All the IR stakeholders visualized and analyzed the drone data on Indshine’s platform. At the same time, collaborative decisions were taken based on engineering drawings on superimposed orthomosaic.

Proposed bypass alignment with important structures marked on Indshine’s cloud platform

Longitudnal section profile for proposed railway bypass at Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh

Cross section along proposed alignment showing cut/fill area, ground profile and proposed corridor

DELIVERABLES

1. A high-resolution map (orthomosaic) of total 50.5 KM length with 120M right of way. the orthomosaic was published on Indshine’s cloud platform where stakeholders can visualize, collaborate and make informed decision right itself in a web browser anywhere and anytime.
2. Digital Elevation Model to check the elevation of any point on ground/building etc.
3. Proposed Bypass Alignment superimposed on orthomosaic in CAD format and Printed format.
4. Longitudinal Section of proposed alignment showing ground elevation, existing rail lines elevation, proposed formation elevation profile and cut/fill to be made.
5. Cross Section along the proposed alignment showing the profile of ground and proposed formation level along with cut/fill to be made on ground.
6. Earthwork Estimation Report containing the cut/fill to be made at every 20M chainage and the overall material to be used for the construction of railway corridor.

We went a few extra steps from the required deliverable and also generated 3D model of the proposed bypass for better understanding and visualization.

3D Model of Railway chord Line at Itarsi, Madhya Pradesh

WHAT’S NEXT

Indshine is working on making aerial data useful, easy to analyze and visualize using high end cloud technology. With Indshine’s cloud platform make informed decision anywhere, anytime right itself in a web browser. Drone data can be used to produce not only 3D models but upto 5D models including construction schedule, timeline etc. but the data format differs and are quite heavy to load in a single desktop application, here comes the application of cloud based technology, our platform can handle various data formats and large data-sets and the data can be shared among coworkers to make better decisions.

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.