Centre for Railway Information Systems

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (or CRIS) located in Chanakyapuri, New Delhi

New Delhi

New Delhi is the capital city of India. It serves as the centre of the Government of India and the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi. New Delhi is situated within the metropolis of Delhi. It is one of the nine districts of Delhi Union Territory. The total area of the city is...

, was established as a registered society in 1986 by the Ministry of Railways

Ministry of Railways (India)

The Ministry of Railways in India is in charge of the Indian Railways, an organisation that operates as a monopoly in rail transport in India. Dinesh Trivedi is the current minister responsible for railways....

of India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, as an umbrella organization for all computer activities on Indian Railways

Indian Railways

Indian Railways , abbreviated as IR , is a departmental undertaking of Government of India, which owns and operates most of India's rail transport. It is overseen by the Ministry of Railways of the Government of India....

(IR). CRIS today designs, develops, implements and maintains most of the important information systems of the Indian Railways.

History Of CRIS

In 1982, the Indian Railways set up a Central Organisation (COFOIS) for computerisation of the freight operations of Indian Railways. By 1986, the need for a dedicated autonomous organisation for this purpose had become apparent. Therefore, the Ministry of Railways established the CENTRE FOR RAILWAY INFORMATION SYSTEMS (CRIS), an umbrella organisation for all information technology related activities on Indian Railways (IR). It was entrusted with the task of design, development and implementation of the FOIS, along with its associated communications infrastructure. The Centre started functioning from July, 1987. It is an autonomous organisation headed by its Managing Director.

A unique feature of CRIS is the presence of IT specialists as well as Railway domain experts on deputation from the Indian Railways.

Some of the systems managed by CRIS have received international recognition, such as Computerworld Honors.

Work

CRIS designs, develops, implements and maintains large information systems for the Indian Railways. In addition, CRIS has developed, implemented, and maintained IT systems for other entities such as the Andaman and Nicobar administration (A & N Ship Ticketing system

In recent years, the number of systems being handled by CRIS has grown rapidly. From the initial 3 projects, CRIS is presently handling over 20 large projects.

Important Indian Railways IT projects being handled by CRIS

The computerisation of the Freight Operation Information System of Indian Railways. FOIS enables management and control of freight movement, optimisation of asset utilisation, and generation of freight invoices ("Railway Receipts"). Many of IR's important freight customers pay through the electronic payment gateway interfaced with FOIS. Approximately 60% of the freight revenue of the Railways is paid through the payment gateway.

Passenger Reservation System (PRS) - CONCERT. A countrywide online passenger reservation and ticketing system, developed and maintained by CRIS, is a complex online distributed client server application developed in C and Fortran
Fortran
Fortran is a general-purpose, procedural, imperative programming language that is especially suited to numeric computation and scientific computing...

programming languages on Digital
Digital Equipment Corporation
Digital Equipment Corporation was a major American company in the computer industry and a leading vendor of computer systems, software and peripherals from the 1960s to the 1990s...

OpenVMS
OpenVMS
OpenVMS , previously known as VAX-11/VMS, VAX/VMS or VMS, is a computer server operating system that runs on VAX, Alpha and Itanium-based families of computers. Contrary to what its name suggests, OpenVMS is not open source software; however, the source listings are available for purchase...

operating system using RTR (Reliable Transaction Router) as middleware. CONCERT (COuntry-wide Network of Computerised Enhanced Reservation & Ticketing) interconnects the five regional computing systems at New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad into a National PRS grid. It allows a passenger from any location to book train tickets from any station to any station. It handles reservations, modifications, and cancellations / refunds. It performs reservation for over 1.2 million seats and berths daily. It has complex rules, validations and fare computation techniques interwoven in the application.
The Internet based E-ticketing reservation system, whose front-end has been developed by IRCTC.
The computerisation of the Unreserved Ticketing System Unreserved Ticketing System of Indian Railways. Unreserved ticketing constitutes a major component of the IR’s overall ticketing volume and is an important source of revenue. UTS delivers fast and efficient unreserved ticketing from dedicated counters replacing manual Printed Card Tickets/EFTs/BPTs with centralised online sales accounting. The solution architecture lends itself to easy integration with handheld terminals, smart cards, automatic vending machines, etc.
National Train Enquiry System for latest train running timings.
Web Enabled Claims- The web-based software enables the general public to not only file claim cases through the web but also track the progress of their claims. All the rules and regulations for claims and accident case filing along with contact details of all claims offices are available on the website.
Rail Budget Compilation System (RBCS)- Developed for budgetary inputs from the different zones and production units of the Indian Railways, RBCS facilitates capturing of data, building of database, analysis of demands and pruning of the estimates for inclusion in the Railway Budget.
Vigilance Software System (VSS) - VSS is designed specially for the requirements of Vigilance on Indian Railways and has been implemented in all the Zonal Railway Headquarters. VSS maintains information on vigilance cases / complaints including various reports and correspondence.
Material Management Information System (MMIS)- This package is designed specifically for the requirements of stores accounting for P-Way materials and scrap disposal.
Comprehensive Accounting & Transaction System (CATS) CATS has been designed with a common database to address functionalities for personnel and Finance Departments. CATS contains two major modules: Financial Accounting System (FAS) and Payroll System (PS).
Workshop Information SystEm (WISE) WISE is a MIS project for the various railway workshops around the country. Currently it is in operation in 15 workshops, viz. Kharagpur, Jagadhari, Ajmer, Kota, Charbagh, Liluah, Kacharapara, Matunga, Lower Parel, Parel, Bhusawal,, Secundrabad, Lallaguda, Jamalpur. WISE is currently maintained by the group Project-II and provides managerial reports to the various managements. The project utilizes the ORACLE DBMS. WISE is being upgraded to an ERP-based system.
Railway crew management in India
Railway crew management in India
Indian Railway, the world's largest network , consists of more than 100,000 Train Drivers/Assistant Drivers/Guards, which forms the basic functioning team, responsible for Train Operations.-Classification of drivers and guards:...

The Crew Management System (CMS) is software which provides information regarding railway crew at all times. It provides information regarding the presence of crew at home station or at out station, maintains their status-wise records, and assigns crew to trains. It also maintains information regarding periodic and other rests, road learning & traction knowledge. The software system gives SMS alerts to management and supervisors in case the crew levels fall below a critical level likely to affect train operations. It is capable of booking crew on Coaching, Shunting, and Freight services in the form of Links and Rosters. The software system has tools to support the safety monitoring of the crew by nominated Inspectors, monitoring of the crew knowledge through a Quiz administered through the kiosks in the crew lobbies, and enables the crew to read the latest safety circulars.
Control Office Application(COA) provides a solution for the rail traffic Controllers of each Division to manage the trains running in their section. COA is running in all the Divisional Control offices in the Indian Railways. The COA application is interfaced with other applications such as the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) to provide train running information to the passengers and railway managers.
The E-Procurement system provides a secure, fair, and transparent method of procurement of material by the Railways through a web-based interface. This system enables suppliers to securely upload their tenders to a central server in encrypted form, which can then be decrypted only by authorised officials of the Railways after the date and time of tender opening. All time stamps are authenticated by the National Physical Laboratory. The system is in operation in all Zonal Railways and units of IR. Other modules such as E-Auction etc. are at an advanced stage of development.
SLAM - Software for Locomotive Asset Management is a software system under development at CRIS which shall cater for Electric Locomotive Asset Management on Indian Railways.
Asset Management systems such Locomotive Management System for Diesel locomotives, Freight Maintenance Management System for wagons (freight railcars), Coaching Maintenance Management System (CMM), and Track Management System are under development and implementation at pilot sites. In addition, an ERP system is being implemented in the Integral Coach Factory, Chennai.

Enterprise Application Integration

Various independently running applications interchange data amongst themselves. COA (Control Office Application), which assists train controllers (despatchers) in planning and tracking the movement of trains across the Railway network, moves its data to various applications like NTES (National Train Inquiry System) through which passengers can obtain the trains' exact location as well as their movement forecast. Similarly train punctuality reports are generated through ICMS (Integrated Coaching Management System), which also receives data from COA.

Important Events in CRIS

News

CRIS held a symposium on the topic "IT can happen in Government" in the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi from 08.45 hrs to 16.30 hrs on July 1, 2010.
The Symposium was meant to understand the challenges faced by Govt agencies in India in meeting their IT needs and creating IT-enabled systems.

To view the details of Symposium Live Click here

External links

Priyanka Sharma

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