The Bangladesh Railway is facing uncertainties in launching its trial basis train tracking system on mobile phones for the benefit of the passengers.
The launching scheduled for last month became uncertain due to political unrests, said BR officials. They said that the plan was to display the locations and timings of the trains on mobile phones using geographic information system, better known as GIS.
The system proposes to provide, on trial basis, instant information on trains’ location and timings, they said.
BR would introduce the system with support from Malaysia-based Suncrops, under a 10-year
agreement signed in April, they said.
GIS would enable the railway to display maps to track trains’ locations and speed, they said.
A senior railway official said that Suncrops already installed the tracking device on the roofs of 26 locomotives.
The service would be launched after setting up the tracking device on another 40 locomotives, he said.
Suncrops would gradually set up the tracking devices on the rooftops of 295 locomotives, he said.
A survey conducted by Suncrops in 2008 found that 78 per cent of the passengers identified indefinite waiting at platforms as the number one
problem facing the country’s railway service, Suncrops chairman M Amiruzzaman told New Age Monday.
The tracking device would enable the waiting passengers to get the exact location of the trains they wan to avail on their mobile phones,’ he said.
He said that it would provide relief from extra anxiety of missing trains and also save their valuable time.
Suncrops would fund, manage, operate and maintain the whole project, he said.
Work on the project suffered disruptions, he said, as some of the devices installed on the roofs of locomotives had been removed or damaged during the ongoing blockade.
He said greater passenger awareness would help the safety of the tracking device providing them with accurate information of train timings.
He said that the system would display with maps the 2,877 km route of BR.
He said that the programming was done in two years since 2009.
It’s a costly project, he said.
A senior BR official said that the service has been available to GrameenPhone users on a limited scale since November.
BR took the project to replace its manually operated train timings which passengers can get on inquiry, said officials.
BR director general Mohammad Abu Taher told New Age on Monday that the tracking system was expected to be launched soon.
BR carries about 2.25 lakh passengers everyday from 456 railway stations using 334 trains in its countrywide network, said officials.
-With New Age input
