Indian Railway is now providing the live tracking of Indian Trains’ running status. Now one can know the exact location, speed and direction of the train from website or through SMS. The project is named as SIMRAN (Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation) which uses GPS and GSM service for monitoring trains continuously.
Project SIMRAN is being carried out jointly by Research Designs & Standard Organization (RDSO), Lucknow and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur. The total cost of the project is estimated to be around ₹110 crore.
How to avail the facility
• The service can be accessed online by visiting the dedicated website http://www.simran.in/.
• To get the live status via SMS, you can send a SMS to 09415213409 OR 09415213409 in the following format T <Train Number> . For example send SMS T 12302 for getting the instant position of ‘New Delhi-Howrah Rajdhani Exp.’
• The service can also be availed from 139 (official train inquiry number).
More about the project
At present the project (Baby Simran) is covering only Rajdhani trains, Shatabdi trains originating from New Delhi and EMUs running between Lucknow and Kanpur. 1000 more trains will be equipped with SIMRAN Train Equipment for Real Time Passenger Information System before December 2012. However short distance trains are totally ignored at this stage.
SIMRAN would also help in reducing the cases of collision of trains. An officer said that since all trains would be equipped with GPS, an alarm would blow in driver’s chamber when two trains comes closer. Alarm will also be fitted at unmanned crossings, and when train comes closed to the crossing, it will raise.