Ashwini Vaishnaw reviews advanced version of Indian Railways’ Kavach

Railway officials on Monday (June 24) said that Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw assessed the development of the enhanced Automatic Train Protection System (ATP) known as Kavach 4.0 at Rail Bhawan.

According to railway officials, Kavach 3.2 is currently being deployed on designated high-density routes, with plans to concurrently upgrade and install the latest version on additional routes to expand coverage across the railway network within a condensed timeframe. 

They noted that Vaishnaw conducted a review of Kavach 4.0 progress on June 22.

After the minister’s review, he instructed that the installation of Kavach be implemented systematically and expeditiously once it becomes operational.
The railway ministry emphasises that the development of Kavach represents a significant advancement in railway safety.

Earlier, Vaishnaw on multiple occasions during media interactions had highlighted that while most major global railway systems adopted ATP technology in the 1980s, Indian Railways embarked on this journey with the approval of the first version of the Train Collision Avoidance System in 2016. 

Following rigorous trials and testing, this safety system achieved SIL4 certification in 2019, the highest level of safety certification globally.

According to the Railways, the Kavach system was approved as a national ATP system in 2020, despite the outbreak of COVID-19.

In 2021, version 3.2 of the system received certification and was adopted. Starting in the last quarter of 2022, efforts commenced to install this version along high-density routes like Delhi-Mumbai and Delhi-Howrah.

Experts involved in the installation of the Automatic Train Protection system emphasize that its functionality relies on five subsystems.

Alongside railway tracks, three subsystems optical fibre network, towers with radio equipment, and RFID tags are installed, while data centres are established at railway stations and integrated into the signalling system.