New Delhi, November 25: The Railways is planning to cover its entire network of 68,000 km route with automatic train protection system in a phased manner. Addressing the 62nd annual day of Indian Railways Institute of Signal Engineering and Telecommunication in Hyderabad, Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav said that as a pilot project, the system would be implemented on 650 route km of the golden quadrilateral corridor connecting the four metros - Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
“The automatic train protection system has been introduced all over the world. It's only in India that we are still dependent on the driver to see the signal and if the driver does any mistake that culminates into an accident. The signal and telecommunications department is going to play a vital role in the speeding up of services and ensuring safety in future,” said Yadav. Indian Railways in August had signed an MoU with RailTel Enterprises Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary company of RailTel, for the work of modernization of signaling system on 4 sections, which included Automatic Train Protection System with LTE based Mobile Train Radio Communication System(MTRC).
Automatic train protection (ATP) is a type of train protection system which continually checks that the speed of a train is compatible with the permitted speed allowed by signalling, including automatic stop at certain signal aspects. If it is not, ATP activates an emergency brake to stop the train.