In a major development, the Indian Railways recently rolled out newly upgraded Tejas type Smart Sleeper coaches equipped with intelligent sensor-based systems for Rajdhani Express.
The bright golden hued coaches, with enhanced smart features are being introduced to run railway’s prestigious Mumbai-New Delhi Rajdhani Express train.
Indian Railways plans to upgrade all the Rajdhani Express which are running with LHB coaches to Tejas coaches in a phased manner, reports Mint.
The decision is in line with the Indian Railways’ vision towards a more comfortable and technologically enhanced passenger travel. Earlier, the Indian Railways unveiled its plans to roll out the much-awaited and all-new “AC Economy” class of train travel.
“With the use of Tejas SMART Coach, the Indian Railways aims to move to predictive maintenance instead of preventive maintenance. The introduction of this modern Tejas Sleeper type train for long distance journey, is another paradigm shift by the Indian Railways for enhancing the travel experience for passengers,” the statement from the Railway Ministry said.
“The Indian Railways has been taking forward leaps in the past few years, including in the COVID ridden 2020 and 2021, with steps such as formulating the NRP 2030 (national rail plan), streamlining EPC documents and general conditions of contract, etc. These have already created an investor-friendly environment for public-private partnerships in the Indian Railways domain,” said Ashish Suman, Partner, J Sagar Associates.
Two such Tejas-type sleeper coach rakes have been made ready to run as Rajdhani Express. Out of these two rakes, one rake comprises exclusive Tejas smart sleeper coaches, which is the first-of-its-kind to be introduced by the Indian Railways.
The new train will have special smart features for enhanced passenger safety and comfort. The smart coach aims to provide world-class facilities to passengers with the help of intelligent sensor-based systems.
It is equipped with the passenger Information and Coach Computing Unit (PICCU) provided with GSM network connectivity, which reports to the remote server.
PICCU will record the data of WSP, CCTV recording, toilet odour sensors, panic switch and other items integrated with fire detection and alarm system, air quality and choke filter sensor and energy meter.
Among others, for the enhanced safety of passengers, six cameras are fitted in each coach which gives live recording. CCTV cameras with day night vision capability, facial recognition even in low-light condition, and network Video Recorders.
The new smart coaches are equipped with automatic plug doors and all the main entrance doors are centralised, controlled by the guard. The train will not start until all doors are closed.
Other features in the new smart coaches include a fire alarm, detection and suppression system, emergency talk back for medical or security emergency, panic button in lavatories, toilet annunciation sensor integration (which will relay dos and don’ts announcements in the lavatories, whenever it is engaged), bio-vacuum toilet system, stainless steel under-frame, air suspension coaches, among others.
With the introduction of smart coaches, a new era of train travel experience with enhanced comfort is being rolled out.
“Indian Railways is committed to realising our PM @narendramodi ji’s vision to provide world-class facilities to our passengers. Today, Mumbai Rajdhani Express starts to run with new upgraded Tejas-type Smart Sleeper coaches,” Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said in a tweet.