Centre for Railway Information Systems

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (or CRIS) was established as a registered society in 1986 by the Ministry of Railways of India, Chanakya Puri, New Delhi to be an umbrella for all computer activities on Indian Railways (IR). Over the last two decades, CRIS has come a long way and its activities today encompass the entire gamut of design, development, implementation and maintenance of world-class online systems. Some of its systems have received international recognition, such as Computerworld Honors. [2005 Computerworld Honors Case Study, accessed at [http://www.cwhonors.org/laureates/transportation/20055380.pdf] Jan 8, 2007] [ PCQUEST (India) Best IT Implementation of the Year 2006, accessed at [http://www.pcquest.com/content/implementation2006/2006/106060816.asp] , Jan 8, 2007] ]

Work

CRIS has developed expertise in IT infrastructure including design, implementation, and management of enterprise level data centres and networks and is working on mobile and wireless solutions. It does requirements analysis, development, deployment, network setup, data centre establishment and maintenance for complete IT solutions for Indian Railways.

Important Indian Railways IT projects being handled by CRIS

# The computerisation of the "Freight Operation Information System" of Indian Railways. FOIS enables management and control of freight movement and optimisation of asset utilisation.
# [http://www.indianrail.gov.in/ "Passenger Reservation System (PRS)"] - "CONCERT". A countrywide online passenger reservation and ticketing system and the world’s largest online reservation application, developed and maintained by CRIS, is a complex online distributed client server application developed in ‘C’ and FORTRAN on OVMS using RTR (Reliable Transaction Router) as middleware. CONCERT (COuntry-wide Network of Computerised Enhanced Reservation & Ticketing) interconnects the five regional computing systems at New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad into a National PRS grid. It allows a passenger from any location to book train tickets from any station to any station. It handles reservations, modifications, and cancellations/refunds. It performs reservation for over 995,000 seats and berths (peak rush as high as 1,017,000) daily. It has Complex rules, validations and fare computation techniques interwoven in the application.
# The [http://www.irctc.co.in "Internet based E-ticketing reservation system"] , whose frontend has been developed by IRCTC.
# The computerisation of the [http://www.indianrail.gov.in/abcrisuts.html "Unreserved Ticketing System"] Unreserved Ticketing System of Indian Railways. Unreserved ticketing constitutes a major component of the IR’s overall ticketing volume and is an important source of revenue. UTS delivers fast and efficient unreserved ticketing from dedicated counters replacing manual Printed Card Tickets/EFTs/BPTs with centralised online sales accounting. The solution architecture lends itself to easy integration with handheld terminals, smart cards, automatic vending machines, etc.
# [http://www.trainenquiry.com National Train Enquiry System] for latest train running timings.
# [http://www.claims.indianrail.gov.in Web Enabled Claims] - The user-friendly software enables the general public to not only file claim cases through the web but also track the progress of their claims. All the rules and regulations for claims and accident case filing along with contact details of all claims offices are available on the website.
# "Rail Budget Compilation System (RBCS)"- Developed for budgetary inputs from the different zones and production units of the Indian Railways, RBCS facilitates capturing of data, building of database, analysis of demands and pruning of the estimates for inclusion in the Railway Budget.
# "Vigilance Software System (VSS)" - VSS is designed specially for the requirements of Vigilance on Indian Railways and has been implemented in all the Zonal Railway Headquarters. VSS maintains information on vigilance cases / complaints including various reports and correspondence.
# "Material Management Information System (MMIS)"- This package is designed specifically for the requirements of stores accounting for P-Way materials and scrap disposal.
# "Comprehensive Accounting & Transaction System (CATS)" CATS has been designed with a common database to address functionalities for personnel and Finance Departments. CATS contains two major modules: Financial Accounting System (FAS) and Payroll System (PS).
# "Workshop Information SystEm (WISE)" WISE is a MIS project for the easy working of the various railway workshop around the country. Currently it is working efficiently in 15 workshops, viz. Kharagpur, Jagadhari, Ajmer, Kota, Charbagh, Liluah, Kacharapara, Matunga, Lower Parel, Parel, Bhusawal, Jhansi, Secundrabad,Lallaguda, Jamalpur. WISE is currently maintained by the group Project-II and is successfully giving managerial reports to the various managements .The project is completely designed in ORACLE.
# "Crew Management System" (CMS) Crew Management System is software which provides information regarding railway crew at all times. It provides information regarding the presence of crew at home station or at out station, maintains their status-wise records and assigns crew to trains. It also maintains information regarding the periodic and other rests, Road Learning & Traction knowledge. The software systems gives SMS alerts to management and supervisors in case the crew levels falls below alarm level likely to effect the train operations. It is capable of booking crew on Coaching, Shunting, Freight services in the form of Links and Rosters. The software system has tools to support the safety monitoring of the crew by it nominated Inspectors, monitoring of the crew knowledge through Quiz and has capacities to make the crew read the latest safety circulars put into the system for reading by the crew.
# "Control Office Application"(COA) is a software which provieds a sloution for Controler of Division to manage the trains running over the track. this project is alredy running on 30 division. Also this project start a new fase to intgrate the different project like NTES,COIS,FOIS etc. to give the current information of running train.Because of this now IR get the information within a seconds.the project is very important.

References

External links

* [http://www.cris.org.in CENTRE FOR RAILWAY INFORMATION SYSTEMS (CRIS) web page]
* [http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20060403/market06.shtml "Giving an IT boost to Indian Railways", Express Computer, April 3, 2006]
* [http://www.hindu.com/2005/09/13/stories/2005091313420300.htm "New feather in N.R. cap", The Hindu, Sept 13, 2005]
* [http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2005/07/08/stories/2005070802970700.htm "Rlys to use radio frequency identification to track wagons", Business Line (The Hindu), July 8, 2005]