Railways To Establish Track Analytics Cell To Increase Its Work Efficiency

By Chanchal Mukherjee

New Delhi, August 11: The Indian Railway has decided to establish a Track Analytics Cell to increase its work efficiency and execute the planning easily. This will make the system more efficient and focused at the Divisional level to support data-driven decision-making, enhance maintenance planning, and strengthen safety monitoring by leveraging digital platforms.

As per the Railway Board, its primary role will be to assist field officials by monitoring data on the Track Management System and Bridge Management System (TMS/BMS), providing actionable insights, identifying anomalies, and ensuring timely and accurate data feeding.

"With the increasing digitalization of Railways, a significant volume of data related to maintenance, planning, and execution is now being hosted across multiple web-based platforms such as TMS/BMS and other related portals. Field officials, particularly Branch Officers, are increasingly required to draw actionable points from a variety of these sources, which is a time-consuming exercise," the Railway Board letter states.

"It has been decided to establish Track Analytics Cells at the Divisional level to make the system more efficient and focused. Similarly, there would be a Cell under CPD/TMS/NR for IR," it added.

According to the RB letter, all zonal railways are requested to make necessary arrangements for the establishment of TAC divisions latest by August 31.

Objectives:

TAC, both at the Divisional level and under CPD/TMS/NR, will work to support data-driven decision-making, enhance maintenance planning, and strengthen safety monitoring by leveraging digital platforms such as TMS/BMS. Its primary role is to assist field officials by monitoring data on TMS/BMS, providing actionable insights, identifying anomalies, and ensuring timely and accurate data feeding.

Primarily work:

The cell will work primarily in relation to TMS/BMS, including Day-to-Day Monitoring and Data Compliance.

TMS-based Safety Monitoring:

Continuously monitor safety-related data in TMS. Flag exceptions and critical alerts to concerned officials, and monitor the progress of compliance at each level till resolution. Disseminate relevant insights generated by the Cell under CPD/TMS/NR to Divisional officials, identify anomalies, discrepancies, or exceptions in reports available on TMS and follow up with concerned field officials to ensure rectification in a time-bound manner.

Exception Handling and Rectification:

Ensure regular and timely updating of data in TMS, particularly for timely Data Feeding, asset inspections & compliance with deficiencies found in inspections, asset renewals, attention of locations identified during TRC & OMS runs.

New Data Fields and Features:

Ensure that any newly introduced fields/features in TMS are appropriately filled; follow up with concerned officials if data remains unfilled. Provide support to divisional officials for understanding and using TMS features. Organize demonstrations and short training sessions as per the requirements of Divisional officials.

Coordination and Feedback:

Act as a link between data insights and field execution, provide periodic feedback to Divisional officers regarding unresolved issues or data quality concerns.

Manning & Reporting Structure:

Each data analysis cell will be staffed with one Permanent Way (P.Way) supervisor as the in-charge of the Cell, one/two track maintainers proficient in computer usage, Divisional Cell will report to senior concerned officials for day-to-day working.

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