Abstract:
This paper describes about the design and
implementation of the Computer Assisted Railway Control
System for Sri Lanka Railways. Currently, the train traffic
control system of Sri Lanka Railways has two control units.
They are Outstation and Metropolitan control units. In the
outstation unit, controllers spend more time in manually
plotting the TDG (Time Distance Graph) than decision making
and for reporting purposes the same data are re-entered. In
the metropolitan unit, switch boards in illumination based
panel is used to monitor and control train traffic. This panel
has many drawbacks such as congested layout, unclear
information and unreliable bulbs and switches. So at the end of
the day, all these problems contribute to trains getting delayed.
The proposed system is built using 4-tier networked
architecture which addresses the aforementioned drawbacks
and bottlenecks. Features such as TDG, TDG Designer, Track
Designer, Dispatcher Control View, Rules Editor, Train
Timetable, Traffic Control Playback, Auto Train Supervision
and Reporting have helped to improve the overall operation of
Centralized Train Traffic Controlling of Sri Lanka Railways.
Moreover, the solution comprises a high performance and
more reliable hardware unit with higher I/O capacity that
provides a hardware interface between the proposed system
and the existing electromechanical interlocking system. The
solution was successfully tested at Maradana Control Office
and Dcmatagoda Workshop with the presence of senior
officials from Sri Lanka Railways. The test results obtained
depict that the system has helped to improve the overall train
controlling operations of Sri Lanka Railways and proved its
potential for implementation.
