India railway achieve 100% punctuality
9:24 AM
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT?
This is no mean achievement –
It is indeed not an easy task given all the
constraints that the Railways usually face
while running a train on its designated path and time slot.
BUT IT WAS ACHIEVED DURING COVID-19
It is important, however, to remember the context –very few trains are running now.
Thus the punctuality of the Railways can hardly be compared with its own
performance on discount in pre-COVID times,
When it ran over 13,000 passenger trains and over 8,000 freight trains every day.
The 100% punctuality on July 1 has been
achieved when the network is running just
230 passenger trains –
along with about 3,000 loaded freight trains and 2,200 empty ones.
WHY TRAINS GET DELAYED?
There are unforeseen situations such as a failure of assets like-
The signalling system and overhead power equipment.
Several types of breakdowns can occur, related to rolling stock, tracks, etc., that make a train lose time along the way.
Then there are external unforeseen problems like-
Run-over cattle and humans, agitations on the tracks, and the like.
WHAT RAILWAY HAS DONE TO ACHIEVE THIS FEAT?
The maintenance of tracks was carried out in a quick time during the Covid period in
various critical sections,
So the average speed increased, and stretches of slowing down were
minimized.
The Railways spokesperson said,
“Better and modern signalling is also making an impact.
Another reason is better planning and operations analysis.”
He attributed this to better monitoring at the Division level and said that the entire organisation at every level was focussed on this.
HOW DO THE DELAYS IMPACT THE OVERALL SYSTEM?
In normal times, these failures take away a lot of scheduled time when the train is detained even for a short time,
Because making up the lost time during the remainder of the journey is a tricky business.
It’s not as though a train can just run faster to make up for a lost time.
In a network chock-a-block with trains, a train hardly ever has such leeway built into its pre-set path.
Any train that gets delayed inordinately due to whatever reason during the journey theoretically eats into the “path” –or time slot allotted on the track – of another train.
It then becomes a matter of which train to prioritise.
Conventionally, Rajdhanis and premium trains get priority of path over ordinary mail/express trains.
Usually, in railway operations, a train running on time, maintaining its schedule on its given path, is not disturbed to make space for a train that has suffered
irredeemable delays along the way.
Freight trains, whose runs are not exactly time-sensitive, are usually held up to make way for passenger trains.
BUT WHY DO THE RAILWAYS HAVE TO JUGGLE OPERATIONS IN THIS WAY?
It’s a constantly dynamic scenario in which railway operations professionals take calls all the time.
At the heart of the problem is network capacity constraints.
Which basically means that there are more trains than the network can handle in a given time bracket.
Around 60% of all train traffic is on the Golden Quadrilateral, even though it represents just about 15% of the total network.
WHAT RAILWAY IS DOING FOR IT?
There are projects to enhance capacity by
building additional lines and modernising signalling systems, etc.
The Railways are working on what is called a“zero-based timetable”.
In this concept, which is to be introduced soon, every train that enters the network is justified based on needs and costs.
It is expected to make train operations more seamless.