Delhi Metro Launches Indigenous Signaling Technology Under 'Make in India' Initiative

"The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation on Engineers Day (September 15) today took a major step towards the development of an indigenously-built CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) based signalling technology for the metro railway with the launch of the i-ATS, which is an important sub-system of the signalling system," a statement from the DMRC read.

The inauguration took place at Shastri Park at the hands of Durga Shanker Mishra, Secretary, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) in presence of Mangu Singh, Managing Director of DMRC, Shikha Gupta, Director of Bharat Electronics (BEL's) and other senior officials.

Automatic Train Supervision (ATS) is a computer-operated system that controls and manages train operations. The system is vital for operations of the high-density metro rail, where services are scheduled every few minutes, DMRC statement said.

The officials also said that i-ATS being an indigenously developed technology is expected to lessen the dependence of Indian metros on international vendors who manage such technologies.

NITI Aayog, CDAC, BEL and MoHUA are also a part of this development along with the DMRC where the DMRC was nominated to become the lead in the government initiative.

"It is a really proud occasion to start something like this which is going to add to our strength on the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative. The way we have promoted indigenisation in the development of Metros in the country, I am fully confident that this Indian system will also be sold outside and we will be the leaders in this area as well," Money Control quoted Durga Shankar Mishra as saying.

Technological systems like CBTC are mostly managed by Japan and other European countries. The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has planned to indigenise the CBTC technology as a part of the 'Make in India' initiative.

According to DRDC, while upgrading the ATS of Line 1 (Red Line), DMRC has planned to use indigenous ATS (i-ATS) i.e from Rithala to Shaheed Sthal, Ghaziabad. It would also be used in Phase-IV.

The technology would be able to work with Train Control and Signaling Systems of various suppliers. It can also work with various technology levels of Train Control and Signaling systems. The technology is also suitable for introducing it in Indian Railways which will be coming up with the Centralized Train Control on a large scale.

The statement also mentioned about the Predictive Maintenance module which will be introduced in Phase IV corridors using the i-ATS system.

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