- As a part of the ‘Make in India’ initiative, this system has been jointly developed with BEL for operations on DMRC’s red line
- The technology has been developed with flexibility; can be used in operations of other rail-based systems including Indian Railways
- India has become the 6th country to join the elite list of a few nations in the world which have their own ATS products
In a major development on India’s rail-based mass transit front, the Delhi Metro recently launched the country’s first-ever indigenously developed Train Control & Supervision System. The i-ATS (Indigenous-Automatic Train Supervision) has been jointly developed by Navratna Defence PSU Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), for operations on its first corridor, Red Line (Rithala to Shaheed Sthal). It will be deployed for operations on Delhi Metro’s other operational corridors and the upcoming independent corridors of the phase – 4 project as well. ATS is a computer-based system, which manages train operations.
Since this technology has been developed with flexibility to work with different signalling vendor’s systems with suitable changes, i-ATS can be used in operations of other rail-based systems including Indian Railways, stated the partners. Preventive maintenance modules shall also be introduced in the phase 4 corridors using i-ATS.
Since technology systems such as the CBTC are primarily controlled by foreign countries, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) had decided to indigenise the CBTC technology under the Government of India’s ‘Make in India’ and ‘AatmaNirbhar Bharat’ initiatives. Along with MoHUA, BEL, DMRC, RDSO and other associates are part of this development.
The partners believe that the development of the i-ATS is a major step towards the development of an indigenously built CBTC (Communication Based Train Control) based signalling system for the Metro railway since ATS is an important subsystem of the CBTC signalling system.
MoHUA secretary and the chairman of Delhi Metro, Mr Manoj Joshi, formally launched the locally made i-ATS system from the Operations Control Centre (OCC), Shastri Park in the presence of Delhi Metro MD Mr Vikas Kumar, BEL CMD, Mr Bhanu Prakash Srivastava, Director (R&D), BEL, Mr Manoj Jain and other senior officials.
Notably, BEL and DMRC signed an MoU in this regard in November 2022. The partners noted that a dedicated team of BEL and DMRC are working together to prepare the technology for operations. A full-fledged i-ATS Lab, set up at DMRC’s IT Park to simulate the site requirements, is now being upgraded for the development of CBTC.
Bengaluru-based BEL is a Navratna DPSU under the Indian Defence Ministry. It was established way back in 1954, to meet the needs of the Indian defence services for electronics equipment, systems and services. BEL’s non-defence business segment includes areas such as electronic voting machines, homeland security & smart cities, satellite integration & space electronics, railways, AI, cyber security, software as a service, and energy storage products, besides composite shelters & masts.
