On November 3, 2020, Indian Railways (IR) has tied up with Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad to improve its operational efficiency using digital tools such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Data Analytics. Indian School of Business will analyse the data generated by the Indian Railways.
Data to be used:
i.IR will provide passengers-related data, train operations-related data, freight data and asset-related data to ISB for the analysis.
ii.After analysis, it will be used by IR in the Passenger Reservation System (PRS), introduction of new trains, and predictive asset maintenance.
Appointment of Officers:
i.Railway Board will appoint a Chief Technology Officer (CTO) in zonal headquarters to keep track of emerging technologies in analytics and AI and integrate them in the rail system.
ii.It will also appoint Assistant Chief Technology Officer (ACTO) in all divisions.
iii.6-10 officers in divisions and about 20 in Zonal Headquarters will be identified for training in data analytics and AI.
iv.They will be trained in premier institutions such as IIT (Indian Institute of Technology), ISB, IIM (Indian Institute of Management), IIIT (Indian Institute of Information Technology) on Data analytics and AI.
v.IR has provided training to 88 officials on cloud computing, data science, big data analytics, AI using reinforcement learning, and AI for autonomous vehicles.
Role of Indian School of Business (ISB):
i.ISB will plan an introductory capacity building program and formulate a report on industrial practices of AI on rail transport and benchmarking.
ii.It will develop a report on the establishment of the Centre of Excellence and an advanced capacity building program.
Centre of Excellence:
i.IR is planning to set up a Centre for Excellence on AI and Data Analytics in the next 3 months.
Railways is looking for development of data sharing protocols with Government of India for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), RailTel.
Recent Related News:
i.On 9th August 2020, Piyush Vedprakash Goyal, Union Minister of Railways and Commerce & Industry and Pralhad Joshi, Union Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Coal & Mines dedicated the Railway Museum at Hubballi, Karnataka to the Nation
About Indian Railways:
Chairman & Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Indian Railway Board – Vinod Kumar Yadav
Headquarters – New Delhi
