Indian railways have planned to install an AI-based surveillance system on a 700-km network crossing through the forest areas to prevent elephant deaths, told Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.
The pilot of the technology developed by railways with the support of some startups was introduced in Assam last year on a stretch of 150 km and turned out to be successful. The railways have identified areas across Assam, West Bengal, Odisha, Kerala, Jharkhand, Chattisgarh and Tamil Nadu as the home of elephants.
“This AI-based surveillance system will be implemented in the areas that can alert loco pilots well in time about the presence of elephants on tracks,” the minister said. “We made some improvements in the system based on our field experience, and now it detects the presence of elephants on tracks with 99.5 per cent accuracy,” Vaishnaw added.
How it works?
According to the railway’s officials, optical fibre cable (OFC) that the railways have laid beneath the tracks for telecommunication and signalling purposes comes in handy for the installation of IDS. The device fitted with OFC captures the vibrations when elephants come on tracks and sends real-time alerts to the railway division control room. The system can detect and locate a moving elephant up to 5 meters from the OFC.
The cost of project implementation is estimated at Rs 181 crore for the surveillance of 700 km. According to Northeast Frontier Railways, since the introduction of the Intrusion Detection System (IDS) in December 2022 across 11 elephant corridors (five in the Alipurduar division and six in the Lumding division) in the Northeast, it has generated 9,768 alerts, averaging 41 alerts daily. Since the introduction of the system, these 11 corridors have not reported any train-elephant collisions.
The railways are in talks with the Forest officials to identify such regions and help in the expansion of this project.
(with PTI inputs)