RAILWAY SAFETY SYSTEM

Author- Veenus Yadav

Mentor-Vandana V. Thakre
Madhav Institute of Technology and Science
Gwalior, M.P.
yadavveenus@gmail.com
Abstract— The project under consideration discusses train safety methods as those dealing with fire control and
automation of railway gates. The fire control system consists of a temperature sensor, a comparator and a water
pump for fire extinguishing. If the temperature sensor detects increased temperatures than the reference set in the
comparator, it will switch on a relay so as to drive a water pump and the water from tanks of the coach flows out to
control the fire. Also, a signal is sent to the receiver at the engine notifying a fire hazard. The automation of railway
gates is achieved by using MSP430. When the sensors detect the front of the train, a signal is sent to the MCU which
processes the pulse train and sends a signal to the motor to lift the gate. Similarly, similar set of sensors on the other
side of the gate send signal to the MCU which monitors the pulse train. Thus, when the train passes away the gate is
shut down.

I. INTRODUCTION
Trains are the most opted mode of transport in most of the countries. Fires due to arson or smoking or any such
reasons can prove fatal. Nellore train fire and Ladhowal train fire are such examples. This has increased the death toll
rate and a huge railway loss. Train fires can be ceased by the fire control system. Recurrent events of train fires have
aroused need of fire control systems. In past years government have passed several schemes for the same but with
little success. These schemes were either inefficient or uneconomic. The latest proposal was to provide every coach of
the train with a handheld fire extinguisher, but this too proved uneconomic. The idea proposed in our project make
uses of components that are neither bulky nor uneconomic. The project is a fail proof way to provide fire control in
trains.
Indian railway network is one of the biggest rail networks in Asia. It is not possible to supervise all the railway
crossings. There are a number of unsupervised rail crossings, mostly in rural and remote areas. Also, the railway gate
system fails many a times causing people lose their life due to fault of the person handling the gate. Around 15000
people are killed every year due to train accidents. There is huge risk for the accidents at such sites. Objective of the
project is to make Automatic Railway Crossing System. When the Train is approaching near the rail crossing the
barriers shuts down and once it moves away barrier opens.
The project proposed here is economic and does not require any features to be added to the train or the gates.
Water utilized for fire control is the water already stored in tanks for being used by the passengers. Also, to adopt
automated railway crossing, one just need to add the transmitter and receiver modules at both sides of the crossing.
Employing such systems in Indian railways can save many precious lives and improve standard of Indian railway
transport.

A. Technical Background

Despite recurrent events of train arsons in India, Indian government is yet to install fire detection systems in trains.
The estimated cost of installation of these systems in a train is about Rs 35 lakhs according to a report by The Hindu.
There have been proposals of installation of these systems AC coaches from more than one decade now. The solution
proposed here uses a temperature detection module along with a CC110L in every coach. This would require a budget
of Rs. 1 lakh for installation per train and about another Rs 1 Lakh for maintenance. Hence this turns out to more
economical for Indian Railways than the proposed scheme.
Another problem being discussed here is the accidents at railway crossings. Failure at these railway crossings have
proved fatal. We are proposing the idea of automatic railway crossing along with audio and visual signaling for the
people at the crossings. The present Railway budget 2015-16 has focused more on passenger’s safety and security at
unmanned crossings. Hence with appropriate techniques and maintenance, hundreds of lives can be saved.

B. Proposed Solution

Block diagram:
(a) Fire Alarm in a coach-
When the temperature in the coach rises above a reference level due to fire, temperature sensor detects it and
signal is sent to comparator and then to the relay so as to drive water pump. Also, this signal is sent to the MCU so
that it can be transmitted indicating a fire hazard.
 (b) Fire Hazard Notifier at the Driver’s control Room-
A notification of fire hazard is received at the reciever at Driver’s control room. A buzzer is stimulated notifying
the driver. Also, a LED from a led matrix is turned on to tell the number of coach having the hazard.

(c) IR sensor before Railway Crossing:

When the continuous pulses of IR to photodiode are stopped, MSP430 processes the signal and transmits a value
say ‘a’ notifying a train has approached.

(d) IR sensor after Railway crossing:

When the continuous pulses of IR to photodiode located after railway crossing is stopped, MSP430 processes the
signal and sends a value say ‘b’ to the receiver.

(e) The receiver at the gate:

The receiver at the crossing receives the data and the MCU processes it. If signal ‘a’ is received, the gate is shut
down and if ‘b’ is achieved it is opened along with all the audio and visual signals.
 We have attempted to devise a method of foolproof safety system. We have employed a method of forwarding the
signal from one transceiver to another till the signal has been received at the driver’s control room. This solves the
problem of range as well as pairing of devices. For the automatic railway crossings, if laser is used instead of an IR
Led, the efficiency will greatly increase in a considerably low cost as compared to the various methods already
published which utilizes much of the networking concepts for crossings.

C.Organization of the Report

As discussed already, we have tried to minimize the cost and maximize the efficiency using the Low-power MCUs
by Texas Instruments. We have tried to minimize the requirement of component by effectively programming the
devices.

II. PROPOSED SOLUTION

(a) Fire control system-

(b) Automated railway crossing-

(c) To check for presence of train-

(d) To lift or shut the railway crossing gate-

The main hardware components used are

 Lm35
 Lm358
 Anaren’s CC110L booster pack with on board MSP430
 Opt101
 IR diode
 L293D
 DC motor
 Water pump
Assumptions made-
 For full implementation of the hardware of fire alarm, we assume all the transceivers to be working at a
particular time.
 We have assumed the scenario of a city in central or north central regions of India. To use these devices in
other parts, it is required to change the reference voltage levels.
Some constraints in the design-
 One of the constraints we encountered was the limit of number of devices that can be paired with a CC110L
module. On large scale, MCUs with more capabilities designed by Texas Instruments can be used to
overcome this problem.
  Another constraint was the availability of laser beam for Railway crossing operation.
 The temperature sensor available with AIR booster pack could not be used because of the fact that we had
limited number of these components. However, in practical usages, this sensor can be used to increase
accuracy and decrease cost.
 Definitely, using the Ultra low power components supplied by Texas instrument would increase the
efficiency of this system.

III IMPLEMENTATION

A. Hardware Implementation

Fire Alarm:

Fig: Fire alarm(Transmitter) in coach

Fig: Receiving module at driver’s control room

The fire alarm circuitry uses the following TI components-

 MSP430 Launchpad
 AIR booster Transceiver CC110L
 Temprature Sensor(LM35)

The temperature sensor LM35 converts the temperature into a voltage level. This value is read and compared against
a reference value by the comparator LM358, If a high value is detected, a high voltage is generated which is fed to the
MSP430 unit. This sends a high voltage to a double pole double throw relay. The relay is connected to the water
pump which is switched on once the relay receives a high voltage. Alongwith this, MSO430 sends a corresponding
value at the receiving module set at the driver’s control room. At this end, the driver is notified by audio and visual
outputs.
Railway Crossing:

Transmitting module consists of following TI components:

 MSP430 Launchpad
 Transceiver (CC110L)
 OPT101

Transmitting module consists of CC110L mounted on a launchpad MSP430G2553 which gets 3.3 V regulated supply
through 7805 circuit. We have used two pair of IR LED and OPT101 on both sides of crossings at a certain distance
from the gate. This IR LED and OPT101 are on opposite side of track to increase the efficiency of IR sensor as it
works best in Line of Sight mode. The photodiode module gets supply through Launchpad and IR module gets supply
through a 3.3 V regulated supply. The IR sensor is used for detecting the presence of a train on the track. The output
of this IR sensor is fed into MSP430.

On receiver side, the following TI components are used:

 Tranciever
 L293D motor driver
 Launchpad

On receiver side, we have CC110L mounted on our launchpad which receives the signal and gives corresponding
output to L293D which is a motor driver used for driving the motor controlling the opening and closing of the gate.

IV. RESULTS

The circuit functioned as per the requirements in order to provide more safe methods for a safe journey.

V. CONCLUSIONS

As was proposed, the railway crossing and fire alarm were automatic and successfully functioned.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I thank my faculty mentor Mrs. Vandana V. Thakre for her kind support.
Commented [vaibh19901]: List references in IEEE format.
Ensure that you provide all details for each reference, such as the
REFERENCES names of the authors, title of the paper/report, source of the
publication, year of publication, etc. Sort the references on the last
[1] http://www.railway-technology.com/contractors/fire_fighting/consilium-transport/. names of the first authors.
[2] http://www.wagner-uk.com/solutions/rail-vehicles/fire-alarm-system/A.N.
[3] http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-03-08/pakenham-line-train-hits-car-at-railway-crossing-at-officer/6289154