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Overview

Country or Region: India

Industry: Railways

Customer Profile

CRIS is mainly a project oriented organization engaged in development of major computer systems for the railways. CRIS provides consulting and IT services to Indian Railways. It conceptualizes and helps realize technology driven business transformation initiatives.

Business Situation

Originally the Control Office Application (COA) was built as a two-tier client server solution, with the client developed using Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 and GDI+. However, this older solution required full screen refreshes to deliver new information, which often slowed performance.

Solution

CRIS upgraded the COA application using Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and its components.

Benefits

■ Reduces charting time from 20 seconds to sub second

■ Improves division workplace effectiveness

■ Enhances passenger and freight customer satisfaction

■ Improves decision making

■

| | |“The redesigned application has helped us to improve rail efficiency, safety, and on-time operations. It has resulted in greater customer satisfaction.”

Mr. Sanjaya Das, General Manager-Projects, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS)

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| | | |India is a land of diverse culture and Indian Railways play a key role in not only meeting the |

| | | |transport needs of the country, but also in binding together dispersed areas and promoting national |

| | | |integration. Indian Railways has been the prime movers of the nation and have the distinction of |

| | | |being one of the largest railway systems in the world under a single management. |

| | | | |

| | | |Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was set up as an umbrella for all computer activities |

| | | |on Indian Railways (IR). The main objective of Control Office Application (COA) developed by CRIS was|

| | | |to help the controller to make accurate decisions as efficiently as possible. |

| | | | |

| | | |However, the initial version of the COA improved division operations; its scope was still limited by |

| | | |a number of factors, including insufficient speed, functionality, and information-sharing |

| | | |capabilities. To address these issues, CRIS decided to upgrade the application to Microsoft .NET |

| | | |Framework 3.0, using Visual Studio 2005. |

| | | | |

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Situation

Indian Railways is one of the most advanced ministries in India, with an innovative and extensive IT environment. What began as a 33.6 km stretch of rail in 1853 has become Asia’s largest train network. Indian Railways operates a rail infrastructure that includes approximately 11,000 daily trains running on more than 104,000 km of track in three different gauges.

In 1986, the Ministry of Railways established Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), to be an umbrella organization for all computer activities of Indian Railways (IR). Primarily a project oriented organization, it is responsible for developing major computer systems for the Railways. It centralizes the Indian Railways effort, ensures standardization, provides high levels of expertise and gives the organization the flexibility to keep pace with the fast changing technology

Managing Rail Traffic

Government owned Indian Railways is a massive operation that transports five to six billion people and more than 750 million metric tons of freight each year.

Railways divided into zones, then divisions and then boards. The system is made up of 16 zonal railways, which in turn are divided into a total of 67 divisions. The controller of each division ensures that the trains’ run safely and on time. Initially, controllers managed train traffic manually, which meant that their time was occupied by mundane and repetitive tasks. Manual train traffic management not only resulted in late trains, it also increased labor costs and limited strategic planning.

The Previous IT infrastructure

As traffic control and management has to be very accurate and precise – delays, track optimization and accident prevention are key, the railways decided to create a client-server application to manage the rail traffic. The pilot project was not rolled out across the organization, as CRIS decided to review the application. This application required a full screen refresh to deliver new information, which often reduced application performance to up to 50 seconds. “In the manual process, the controller only changes some parameters to derive at the result. With the full screen refresh, the time increased to deliver the result on the screen,” comments Mr. Achal Jain, Project Manager, CRIS.

Solution

CRIS did a thorough evaluation of the existing Control Office Application before deciding to upgrade the same.

The redesigned application is developed with components of the Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, using Visual Studio 2005. The entire application has been built on Microsoft Windows Vista, the new generation operating system from Microsoft. It provides real time train traffic information to division controllers, which help them, improve immediate and strategic decision making. By, presentation, and analysis, the application reduces division staffing requirements and frees up controllers to focus on more critical issues.

Logical Architecture

The COA will run in control Office of a division and will be used by controllers to monitor movement of trains on the board assigned to them. The COA application follows n-tier architecture model which consists of the following components: Presentation Layer, Business Layer and Data Access Layer Control View, Data-Entry and Cache.

Presentation Layer: The presentation layer is further divided into following components: Control View, Data-Entry and Cache. The presentation layer has been developed as smart client solution with Click Once capabilities for zero-touch deployment.

Control View: This component is responsible for rendering the control chart as graphical user interface (UI). The controller spends most of the time in this view to monitor the movement of trains and take decisions (such as stopping a goods train on a line so that express trains can move forward etc).

The user interface (UI) has cues to differentiate train types (Express, freight, passenger), differentiate up-stream and downstream and show information such as unusual occurrence and other line related problems. All this is done through vector graphics support provided as part of Windows Vista and Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 component called Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF).

It is imperative that the view renders quickly and should reflect the movement of trains as soon as possible in order to help the controller in making decisions quickly on a high-traffic board. The COA uses Windows Presentation Foundation, which provides new techniques for developing applications, provides richer graphics and, more importantly, the ability to provide incremental refreshes to deliver real time data.

Data Entry: This visual component is responsible for capturing information provided by the controller in a most efficient way possible. The information captured would include movement data, commentary on specific event relating to trains, lines used by a specific train in a station. It also provides information on abnormal working conditions, speed restrictions etc.

The main objective of the component is to capture the aforesaid information as quickly as possible so that the controller can get back to the control view to monitor and make decisions about the movement of trains. The information captured on this screen is logged in the database and also updated in the cache. After the information is updated in the database as well as cache, the control view component is signaled through .NET mechanisms such as event and delegates and the control view can render itself with the new data.

Business Layer: COA business process and logic is encapsulated in the form of .NET components which forms the business layer of the application. The controllers enter the information in the presentation layer. The UI validates the information and transfers it to the business components for business validation and logic checks. The validated information is sent to the presentation layer for the controller to view the information.

Data Access Layer: The master data (e.g. board information, trains running on board etc.) is used as reference information for rendering the control chart and for making decisions. Since this information seldom changes, it is cached in memory, but when they do change, the cache is refreshed.

The controller or board specific data (e.g. movement information) is captured by the controller and logged into the database.

Printing of Charts: The COA requires the control charts to be printed, for analysis, legal and archival purposes, in high resolution. The printing is done in XML Paper Specification (XPS) format, open document format that uses Extensible Markup Language (XML). The charts can be viewed in the browser, in high resolution and clarity compared to jpeg. This facilitates easy archival and can also be used as data sources.

Forecasting Service: A forecasting algorithm that provides accurate results would necessarily take more computation time, anywhere between a few seconds to minutes of the CPU time. An advanced forecasting service is a process that runs on multiple application servers to reduce the time taken to complete the forecast. Advanced Web services support in Windows Communication Foundation, a core component of the .NET Framework 3.0 provides secure, reliable, and transacted messaging along with interoperability. The service-oriented programming model of Windows Communication Foundation is built on the Microsoft .NET Framework and simplifies development of connected systems.

Forecasting service implements a Web service using WCF framework and listens on a TCP endpoint on the forecasting server. The client connects to this service through WCF client proxy and sends the advanced forecasting request. Server, upon receiving the request, can figure out whether a most recent forecast data is available for the board. Each service runs advanced forecasting algorithm for different boards continuously or runs in a pre-defined interval. After each computation, result is updated in the database as well as in the cache.

Error Handling and Logging

It is very important to implement a robust error handling mechanism for COA. It guides the controller as to how to proceed and also helps the administrator to monitor the health of the application and make corrective actions as soon as an exception occurs..

System exceptions will be handled using typical operations management software such as Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) 2005. Using MOM, system administrators can monitor services databases running in different server and workstations.

It is also possible to manage custom applications and services using MOM. COA defines its own events and raise these events to MOM agent. For example, when COA client application receives a database exception, it translates the exception to a Windows Management Instrumentation (WMI) using .NET Framework support for WMI. This in-turn is captured by Microsoft Operations Manager agent, which sends the event to MOM server where appropriate action can be taken.

Deployment Architecture

Currently deployed at two locations in south India, CRIS plans to roll out the application nationwide across 76 control offices by March, 2008

Client: The client machine will run Windows Vista (Enterprise) and will host the presentation layer developed using .NET Framework 3.0 specifically WPF, for the business and data access layer.

Application Server: The application servers are clustered and would run Windows Server 2003. The application server will be running business processes like forecasting service, error handling log, etc.

Database Server: The database will be hosted on separate database server.

Benefits

The redesigned Control Office Application improves rail efficiency, safety, and on-time operations. All this will translate into greater passenger and freight customer satisfaction, as well as increased payloads using the same rail infrastructure. It will also increase revenues, passenger’s safety and efficiencies of Indian Railways.

Reduces Charting Time from 20 Seconds to Sub One Second

The main objective of the application was to provide the controllers with a tool that they were compelled to use. While the first version of COA automated the process, the second version of the application provides compelling benefits thereby improving acceptance with the Indian Railways. It frees division controllers from mundane, time-intensive tasks; improves efficiency of division operations

“The controllers who are currently using the application, find a marked improvement as the data is rendered automatically on their screens giving a sub second response time which is impossible to match manually,” comments Mr. Sanjaya Das, General Manager - Projects, CRIS.. He further adds, “It has also helped alleviate pain points such as repetitive tasks, allowing the controllers to focus on other activities.”

Improves Division Workplace Effectiveness and Efficiency

The process of automating train traffic management will be completed by 2008, March. Going by the current implementation in the one division Indian Railways has already seen improvement in control operations management significantly. Controller is now in a position to monitor higher number of trains with less effort. Thereby opening up a window for better asset planning and operations management.

Enhances Passenger and Freight Customer Satisfaction

“Once COA is completely rolled out and connected to customer facing applications such as the IVR and the railways Web site, we will be able to provide the public with the exact location and arrival and departure times of all trains in real time.

Improves Decision Making

This COA application provides information and tools that will enhance the decision making of rail traffic controllers. The forecasting algorithm helps improve operations by increasing accuracy of arrival and departure predictions.

This has empowered the division controllers and other management to make more informed strategic decisions by providing accurate, detailed, up-to-date information about rail traffic and demand. “Customer satisfaction was a key driver for us. The Control Office Application, which is based on Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0, once implemented nationwide will help us achieve this objective,” says Mr. Sanjaya Das

Future Plans

− Integration with the National Train Enquiry System for providing near real time data generated by COA

− By integrating COA with Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) to facilitate data exchange and for internal reporting purposes

− CRIS plans to integrate the COA across divisions and zones for better operational efficiency

− CRIS plans to automate the data entry using data loggers/GPS.

About Wipro Infotech Limited

Wipro Infotech is a part of USD 2.39 billion Wipro Limited (NASDAQ:WIT) and the various accreditations that we have achieved for every service we offer reflect our commitment towards quality assurance. Currently‚ its presence extends to nine regional offices in India besides offices in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia‚ United Arab Emirates‚ Taiwan‚ Malaysia‚ Singapore‚ Australia and other regions in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

Microsoft Windows Vista

Windows Vista can help your organization use information technology to gain a competitive advantage in today’s new world of work. Your people will be able to find and use information more effectively. You will be able to support your mobile work force with better access to shared data and collaboration tools. And your IT staff will have better tools and technologies to enhance corporate IT security, data protection, and more efficient deployment and management.

For more information about Windows Vista, go to:

windowsvista

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| |Software and Services

■ Products

− Microsoft Operations Manager 2005

− Microsoft Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition

− Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate (64-bit)

■ Technologies

− Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0

− Microsoft 2.0

− Microsoft .NET Alerts |Hardware

■ Application Server: Intel/ AMD 4 GB RAM, 2.2 GHz, Dual Core CPU

■ Database Server: Intel/AMD 4 GB RAM, 2.2 GHz, Dual Core CPU

■ Client:: Intel/AMD 2 GB RAM, 2.2 GHz, Dual Core CPU, SATTA -2

Partners

■ Microsoft

■ Wipro | |

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© 2007 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published April, 2007 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about Centre for Railway Information Systems products and services, call (91) (11) 2410 4525 or visit the Web site at: .in/cris

For more information about Wipro Infotech Limited products and services, call (91) (80) 2844 0011 or visit the Web site at: wipro.in

Logical Architecture: The COA application follows n-tier architecture model which consists of the following components: Presentation Layer, Business Layer and Data Access Layer Control View, Data-Entry and Cache

"We realized that to increase acceptability of the solution, we must offer the controllers with a sub second response time – something that they could not match manually.”

Achal Jain, Project Manager, Centre for Railway Information Systems

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Deployment Architecture

“We saw a demonstration of Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF) and immediately understood the potential of this technology and how it could help us achieve our objectives.”

Mr. Ganesh Vishwanathan, Project Manager, Wipro Infotech Ltd.

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