All Indian Railway Coaches, Wagons To Be Tagged With RFID For Tracking By 2021

By 2021, around 3,50,000 coaches and wagons of the Indian railways will be RFID tagged and tracked. The cost of the project will be around Rs 112 crore, PTI reported citing a senior official.

Radio-frequency identification (RFID) technology enables identification and tracking of objects that RFID tags are attached to, using electromagnetic fields.

Currently, approximately 22,000 wagons and 1,200 coaches have been fitted with RFID tags, said Rajesh Agarwal, member, Rolling Stock, Railway Board to PTI.

Additionally, roughly 3,500 fixed RFID readers are expected to come up which shall communicate to a central control centre using GS1 barcode's LLRP (low level reader protocol) standard, he said.

The RFID project undertaken by CRIS, the IT arm of Indian Railways, can read data even at a speed of 182 kmph, Agarwal said.

This technology will help railways track each of its coaches and wagons as a result of which they can be suitably deployed in a timely manner wherever necessary, he added.