Tamil Nadu: Use artificial intelligence to cut jumbo deaths, National Green Tribunal tells railways (Chennai)
Tamil Nadu: Use artificial intelligence to cut jumbo deaths, National Green
Tribunal tells railways (Chennai)
Ram Sundaram, Times of India
May 18, 2022
The National Green Tribunal (NGT) on Tuesday directed Southern Railways and
forest departments of Tamil Nadu and Kerala to explore the possibility of
using Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based systems to prevent elephant deaths
on Coimbatore-Palakkad railway line. They have been told to convene
meetings frequently to discuss methodologies if the existing systems do not
work as expected.
Previous attempts like ultraviolet-based early warning and message alert
systems proved to be unsuccessful as elephant deaths were on the rise and
in the past one year four from the Coimbatore forest region died in
train collisions.
NGT wants government agencies to install an AI-based system which can alert
the loco pilot at a sufficient distance on locating the passage of the
elephant and other wild animals so that they can reduce the speed and avoid
accidents.
The Southern Railway has started working with Advantech Group of Company to
find a permanent solution to this. As a part of a pilot project at
Pannimadai village in Coimbatore, they have installed infrared cameras at
multiple locations, which can detect elephants 3-6 km away.
Once detected, an alert with a claimed accuracy of 87% to 95% can be raised
through a centrally-monitored control setup on a real-time basis. But
railways has estimated that it might need three more months to commission
it.
Admitting this, NGT has directed them to implement it soon along with other
recommendations made by the Union ministry of environment in its report.
The Centre had suggested shifting a few passenger trains operated at night
from Line B (Palakkad-Podanur Up line constructed in 1974) to Line A
(Podanur-Palakkad Down line laid during 1861) as 78% of the accidents in
the past two decades were reported in Line B. Besides this, it recommended
engagement of five more anti-depredation watchers to drive away elephants
from crop raiding, night watch surveillance programme and more night watch
towers.
The forest departments told the tribunal that they are working on it. So,
NGT disposed of the case with a direction to all government stakeholders to
provide necessary funding and staff strength for effective implementation.