New Delhi, Dec 5 (IANS) Indian Railways has deployed an Artificial Intelligence‑enabled intrusion detection system to detect elephants on tracks across route kilometres (RKms) of the Northeast Frontier Railway and prevent collisions, the government said on Friday.

Further, Indian Railways has awarded tenders covering a further 981 RKms to scale up AI intrusion detection across Indian Railways, the Union Minister for Railways, Information & Broadcasting and Electronics & Information Technology, Ashwini Vaishnaw, said in a written reply to the Rajya Sabha.

The AI system uses a Distributed Acoustic System for detecting the presence of elephants and is designed to generate real‑time alerts for loco pilots, station masters and the Control Room about elephant movement, for timely preventive action and loss of lives of the precious wildlife, the statement said.

Elephants are frequently hit by trains especially in Eastern and Central states like Assam, West Bengal, and Odisha, due to the necessity of railways cutting through vital forest corridors, resulting in unnecessary deaths, that would be preventable in the future with the aid of this new system.

Pilot initiatives involving AI-driven predictive maintenance of the Signalling system are being undertaken over Indian Railways at some of the stations to evaluate its efficacy, the statement said.

Measurable outcomes include Standard Failure and Prediction Logics, and the Alerts mechanism is to be derived from trial results at these stations, it added.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between IR and Dedicated Freight Corridor Corporation of India Limited (DFCCIL) in July 2025 for the induction of the Wayside Machine Vision-based Inspection System (MVIS).

This is an AI/ML-driven system for detecting hanging parts or missing components in moving trains, the statement said.

Further, an MoU was signed between Indian Railways and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to induct the Automatic Wheel Profile Measurement System (AWPMS), which allows for automatic non-contact measurement of train wheel profile, ensuring real-time measurement of wheel geometry and wear.

–IANS

aar/rad