Soon SMS to warn about approaching train on unmanned crossings

NEW DELHI: In an attempt to make unmanned level crossings safer for road users, Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu has directed the Railway Board to explore the use of geo-spatial technologies for the purpose.

Such a technology combines global positioning system (GPS), geographic information system (GIS) and remote sensing. An alert message is flashed automatically on the mobile phones of all the road users who are in the vicinity of an unmanned railway crossing about the approaching train.

With the use of this type of technology, accidents at unmanned crossings could be minimised. This step will be in addition to all the ongoing measures being taken by Railways to control accidents at such crossings, an official statement said today.

Following Prabhu's directives, a high level meeting was held at Rail Bhawan today where representatives of Safety Directorate of Railway Board, Research Designs and Standards Organisation (the research arm of Railways), Center for Railway Information Systems (the IT arm of Railways) and Indian Space Research Organization participated.

The meeting decided to take expeditious necessary steps and prepare an action plan, added the statement.