Talking about the cause of the accident, Sinha said that the accident seemed to be a case of “signal disregard” in the first indication.However, further information can only be given after a detailed inquiry, she added. She said that intallation of ‘Kavach’ was important to control “human errors”.
“Prima facie, it seems to be a human error,” she said adding that “first indications suggest that this is a case of signal disregard.”
When asked about if the anti-collision system was intalled in West Bengal, Sinha said, “Kavach is scheduled to be installed on Delhi-Howrah route, which covers West Bengal, this year.”
“Kavach has been so far installed on 1500 km route. This year, it would be insalled across 3000km more. Next year, we are planning to install it on 3000km more routes”, she added.
What is Kavach?
‘Kavach’ is a system that regulates the speed of the train by applying brakes automatically if the train’s driver fails to do so. It also prevents accidents by alerting or halting the train if the driver disregards signals or exceeds speed limits.
Moreover, it supports train operations in adverse weather like dense fog and can stop the train automatically upon detecting another train nearby on the same track.
It is an Automatic Train Protection system indegenously developed by the Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) in partnership with the Indian industry.
Can it prevent train accidents?
One of the features of ‘Kavach’ is automatic braking that can control over-speeding. It also claims to prevent collision between two trains.
According to Indian Railways, Kavach holds a Safety Integrity Level 4 (SIL-4) certification which gives it a low error probability of once in 10,000 years.