1. INTRODUCTION
Railways were first introduced to India in 1853. By 1947, the year of India's independence, there were forty-two rail systems. In 1951 the systems were nationalized as one unit, becoming one of the largest networks in the world. Indian Railways operates both long distance and suburban rail systems.
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Fig: Shows the top railways network in world
Indian railway is one of the largest and busiest rail networks in the world, transporting 17 million passengers and more than 2 million tons of goods daily. IR is the world's largest commercial, with more than 1.6 million employees. The railways traverse the length and breadth of the country; the ...view middle of the document...
Towards the end of 60's, two positive developments took place in Indian Railways.
Firstly, even though, computerization was perceived by many as a labor saving measure, IR could realize its potential advantage and the plan to progressively computerize Railways was accepted in principle by Management and the Labor Unions.
Secondly, a dedicated skeletal communication network was developed by IR, as a basic requirement for train operation, even though the future development of the merger of computers and communication to give birth to Information Technology was not actually visualized at that time. After the early introduction of regular flavour computer applications such as Pay rolls, Inventory control and Operating statistics, Railways were poised in the mid 70's for deployment of computers for productivity improvement through building up operational databases. However, certain administrative issues and political development came in the way of bringing about any further developments in the field of computerization. The period between mid 70's to early 80's were however utilized by IR to develop a blue print for further computerization. During the beginning of the 80's IR decided on
• Computerization of the Passenger Reservation Arrangement.
• Developing a Freight Operations Information System.
• Replacing the existing Computers at the Zonal Railways and Production Units
with the State-of-the-art Computer systems enabling the organization to computerize more applications and increasing the volume of users.
• Provision of Computers at Divisions, New Production units, Workshops, Sheds and Depots and Training Institutes.
• Quantum improvement in the use of Computers in the offices.
In the last 20 years, IR has made significant progress in Computerization. Out of these developments, we shall examine some of the systems that are currently being used/developed on IR. Management Information System plays a vital role to overcome all this drawbacks in the railways.
2. LITERATURE SURVEY
Nallaswamy V.P, wrote on Indian Railways: Information Technology Innovations in Passenger Services. The transportation industry today has to be on the move, constantly, in more ways than one. It has to deal with the increasing demands of customers and suppliers, while simultaneously trying to optimise the entire business operation at minimum cost. To keep pace with changing business paradigms, transporters need more than ever to use information technology, not merely as an enabler of operations but as a strategic driver and critical business tool.
Sanjay Nayyar1, Vinayshil Gautam and M.P. Gupta1, were wrote on Information Systems Planning: Indian Railways Experience. The focus of this study is information systems development in the Indian Railroads performing in the ambit of the government sector and the concomitant pressures. It tries to address the relationships among work systems and...
