Lok Sabha Question No. 42 (STARRED), answered on 2017-07-19
Subject: Zero-Accident Mission
Ministry: RAILWAYS
Asked by: CHANDRAKANT BHAURAO KHAIRE

## GOVERNMENT OF INDIA MINISTRY OF RAILWAYS

## LOK SABHA STARRED QUESTION NO. 42 TO BE ANSWERED ON 19.07.2017

## ZERO-ACCIDENT MISSION

- *42.    SHRI CHANDRAKANT KHAIRE:

Will the Minister of RAILWAYS be pleased to state:

- (a) whether cases of accidents on railway tracks are on the rise and if so, the details thereof;
- (b) whether the Railways have launched a zero-accident mission envisaging  renewal  of  railway  tracks,  more  railway  bridges, better signalling and rolling out of accident-proof coaches and engines and if so, the details thereof; and
- (c) whether  the  Railways  have  prepared  any  plan  to  generate resources  to  implement  the  zero-accident  mission  and  if  so, the details thereof?

## ANSWER

## MINISTER OF RAILWAYS

(SHRI SURESH PRABHAKAR PRABHU)

- (a) to (c): A Statement is laid on the Table of the House.

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STATEMENT  REFERRED  TO  IN  REPLY  TO  PARTS  (a)  TO  (c)  OF STARRED QUESTION NO. 42 BY SHRI CHANDRAKANT KHAIRE TO BE ANSWERED  IN LOK SABHA ON 19.07.2017 REGARDING ZEROACCIDENT MISSION.

(a): No,  Madam.    As  can  be seen  from the Table below, the consequential train accidents have continuously declined from 135 in 2014-15 to 107 in 2015-16 and further to 104 in 2016-17.  In the current year  also,  consequential  train  accidents  decreased  from  29  to  15 during  2017-18  (from  01/04/2017  to  30/06/2017)  in  comparison  to corresponding period of the previous year which is an improvement of 48.3% over the last year.

| Year                                       |   2014- 15 |   2015- 16 |   2016- 17 |   2016-17 (01.04.16 to 30.06.16) |   2017-18 (01.04.17 to 30.06.17) |
|--------------------------------------------|------------|------------|------------|----------------------------------|----------------------------------|
| Total No. of consequential train accidents |        135 |        107 |        104 |                               29 |                               15 |

Accidents  Per  Million  Train  Kilometres  (APMTKMs),  which  is  an internationally accepted yard stick of safety has declined from 0.23 in 2006-07  to  0.11  in  2014-15,    0.10  (approximately)  in  2015-16  and further declined to 0.09 (approximately) in 2016-17.

(b):  Yes,  Madam.  In  the  Railway  Budget 2016-17, Mission Zero Accident was one of the Missions announced, comprising of the two sub-missions:

- i. Elimination  of  unmanned  level  crossings  (UMLC)  over  broad gauge in the next 3-4 years.
- ii. TCAS (Train Collision Avoidance System): To prevent collisions and signal passing at danger by the Loco Pilot through developing  an  indigenous  technology  and  also  to  increase throughput  by  increasing  average  sectional  speed  on  Indian Railways (IR).

Current  Status  of  the  implementation  of  two  sub-missions  under Mission Zero Accident is as follows:

- (1) Elimination  of  Unmanned  Level  Crossings:  As  on  01.04.2017, Indian Railways have 27181 Level Crossings, out of which 19480 are manned  and  7701  are  unmanned.  Out  of  total  7701  unmanned  level crossings, 4943 level crossings are on BG (Broad Gauge).  It has been planned  to  eliminate  unmanned  level  crossings  (UMLCs)  on  Broad Gauge by 2020. Year-wise target fixed for elimination is as under:
- (2)  Train Collision Avoidance System (TCAS) implementation for High Density Network (HDN) routes. The TCAS system is under developmental stage and trials are in progress on LingampalliVikarabad-Wadi-Bidar pilot section (250 Rkm) on South Central Railway.  After  successful  trials,  Safety  Certification  &  Validation, further works shall be taken up.

| Year    |   No. of UMLCs to be eliminated |
|---------|---------------------------------|
| 2017-18 |                            1500 |
| 2018-19 |                            1500 |
| 2019-20 |                            1943 |

Considering  the  fact  that  the  pilot  TCAS  system  is  under  final stage  of  development  &  certification,  in  the  Pink  Book  2017-18,  a regular  work  on  1427  RKM's  have  been  sanctioned  from    Wadi  Guntakal section (228 RKM's), Bidar - Parli Vaijnath - Parbhani section (241  RKM's)  and  Manmad  -  Parbhani  -  Nanded  -  Secunderabad  Gadwal  -  Dhone  -  Guntakal  section  (958  RKM's)  on  South  Central Railway.

## Other measures taken to prevent rail accidents:

-  Track Renewal - Track renewal is an ongoing process which is undertaken  as  and  when  a  stretch  of  track  becomes  due  for renewal  on  age-cum-condition  basis.  Track  Renewal  works  are planned in advance every year and their execution is prioritized according  to  the  condition  of  track  and  overall  availability  of funds ensuring all the time that track is in a sound condition for safe running of trains.  The allocation for track renewal has been almost doubled from the last 5 years average of ` 5548. 6 crores to ` 9961 crores in the Budget Estimate of 2017-18.
-  Vehicular Ultrasonic Flaw Detection (USFD) System, Self Propelled Ultrasonic Rail Testing (SPURT Car): - Decision to use Vehicle bound USFD testing has been taken to ensure faster as well  as  more  reliable  testing  as  it  would  cover  larger  crosssectional  area  of  rail.  One  tender  has  been  called  by  Northern Railway  for  30400  Track  kilometer  (Tkm)  of  USFD  testing  on Rajdhani  routes  between  New  Delhi-Mugalsarai  and  New  DelhiRatlam sections of Indian Railways. Initially 6 nos. SPURT (Self Propelled  Ultrasonic  Rail  Testing)  Cars    will  be  used  for  USFD testing of rails on Indian Railways. Procurement of these 6 nos.
- SPURT cars have been included in Rolling Stock Program 20172018 at total cost of ` 186.24 crores.
-  Trial  of  Ultrasonic  Broken  Rail  Detection  System  (UBRDS)  for detection of Rail/Weld fractures has been undertaken on Northern  Railway  and  North  Central  Railway  on  25  Km  track length each.  It has been decided to proliferate this system on Indian Railways based on outcome of trial.
-  Centre  Buffer  Coupler:  Progressive  fitment  of  tight  lock  Centre Buffer Coupler (CBC) in lieu of screw coupling on new manufacturing of ICF design coaches has been carried out with a view  to  prevent  the  coaches  from  climbing  over  each  other  in unfortunate event of an accident.
-  Proliferation of Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) coaches for improving Safety: Indian Railways is embarking on a mission to provide  upgraded  safety  features  on  its  coaching  stock.    As  a part of this, it has been decided that only LHB coaches would be manufactured  from  2018-19.    LHB  coaches  are  of  a  superior design that reduces the chances of derailment and mitigates the possibility of grievous injury or death in case of accidents.  LHB coaches have superior body-bogie and wheel-bogie connections, anti-climbing  features,  tight  lock  coupling,  provision  of  bump stop, superior braking, provision of yaw dampers to ensure better riding  and  comfort  with  lesser  chances  of  dislocation  of  body from shell, destabilization and tilting of the coach, possibility of overriding  of  one  coach  over  the  other,  uncoupling  of  coaches and  consequent  movement  in  an  uncontrolled  manner,  etc.  in case of accidents.
-  Refurbishment of ICF coaches: A policy decision has been taken to  carry  out  the  work  of  refurbishment  and  providing  improved safety features in its existing ICF design coaches which have a residual  life  of  more  than  10  years.    A  total  of  about  40,000 coaches will be provided with these features in the next 5 years including production of new coaches.
-  Progressive use of Air springs:   To maintain constant height at variable load, air spring are being used in secondary suspension of EMU/DMU coaches.  These springs shall also be introduced in mainline and LHB coaches to enhance safety and reliability.
-  Train  Protection  &  Warning  System  (TPWS):  Train  Protection  & Warning  System  (TPWS)  has  capability  to  control  the  speed  of train  in  accordance  with  the  sectional  permitted  speed  and signal  aspect  ahead  by  automatic  actuation  of  brakes,  in  case loco pilot fails to do so in time. Thus it mitigates safety risk of accidents/collisions due to loco pilot's error of Signal Passing at Danger or over speeding. TPWS also reduces delays during foggy weather. It is a proven European train protection technology and deployed extensively on World Railways.

TPWS based on this proven technology has been operationalized on 342 RKM's in following sections of Indian Railways,

- (i) Chennai  -  Gummidipundi  Suburban  Section  of  Southern Railway (50 RKMs).
- (ii) Dum Dum - Kavi Subhash section of Metro Railway, Kolkata (25 RKMs).
- (iii) Hazrat Nizamuddin - Agra Section of Northern/North Central Railway (200 RKMs).

(iv) Basin Bridge - Arrakkonam Section of Southern Railway (67 RKMs). (c): In 2017-18, a Fund namely 'Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh' (RRSK) has been created for financing critical safety related works.  The Fund has been created with a corpus of ` 1 lakh crore over a period of five years.  In Budget Estimates of  2017-18, a provision of ` 20,000 crore has  been  made  under  RRSK,  which  includes ` 5000  crore from Budgetary Support, ` 10,000 crore from Central Road Fund and ` 5000 crore out of Railways' internal resources.

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