AI-powered railways

Indian Railways are using tech for passenger and operational safety

- VAISHALI DAR

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Japan recently, the spotlight was not only on diplomacy but also on the future of India's transportation.

Riding on the momentum of the Mumbai-Ahmedabad bullet train project, the two countries unveiled an ambitious roadmap—a 7,000-kilometer high-speed rail network that could reshape how Indians travel, work, and live. The flagship Mumbai-Ahmedabad corridor, built with Japanese technology and expertise, is expected to begin passenger operations within the next few years.

However, Indian Railways is getting tech-savvy with implementation of artificial intelligence across operations, safety, and passenger experience. For example, this year, the Indian Railways has signed an MoU with the Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India (DFCCIL) for installation of machine vision-based inspection system (MVIS) for monitoring the health of its coaches or rolling stocks.

The MVIS is a modern, AI/ML-based technology solution deployed on the wayside that captures high-resolution images of the under-gear of moving trains and detects any hanging, loose, or missing components.