The Hindu : Electronic display boards soon to locate coaches

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, Feb 01, 2004

Kerala

Kerala

Electronic display boards soon to locate coaches

By Our Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE, JAN. 31. As part of efforts to enhance passenger satisfaction, light emitting diode (LED) display boards to locate coaches will be installed at platforms of Coimbatore and Kozhikode, A.K. Sharma, Divisional Railway Manager, Palakkad Division, told reporters recently.

He was here to inaugurate a plasma-based train timetable display board, sponsored by MID-EE SERRVE, a private firm.

Hitherto, hand-written boards were used for providing information and updated manually every 30 minutes.

Henceforth, the plasma-based signboard, linked to a centralised computer server of the Southern Railway, would provide information and the details would be automatically updated.

The facility, being designed at Rs. 30 lakhs by the railways, would have a number of units indicating which coach would come where and also a screen indicating the position of coaches.

This would help passengers boarding trains passing through Coimbatore, as they stop only for five or ten minutes.

Initially, the facility would be installed at two stations, S. Gagarin, Senior Divisional Commissioner Manager, Palakkad, said.

For improving passenger amenities, Rs. 3 crores would be spent this year on all stations coming under the Palakkad division.

The share for each station was decided on the basis of revenue it generated. Coimbatore station earned the highest revenue after Chennai.

Last year, the Coimbatore junction was provided with amenities worth over Rs 1.5 crores and this year, works worth Rs 3.5 crores were being executed.

The ongoing non-interlocking work between the Coimbatore junction and Coimbatore North station would be completed at the earliest.

Though the work was scheduled for completion on February 3, it was expected to take another three or four days.

Once doubling work between the Coimbatore junction and Coimbatore North work was completed, the doubling work between Coimbatore North and Irugur would be taken up, which would remove the bottleneck in the section.

A national train enquiry system (NTES) for providing information on the running of trains, departures and arrivals would be launched soon.

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