A herd of elephants collided with the Sairang-New Delhi Rajdhani Express train in Hojai district of Assam on Saturday (December 20, 2025) morning, in which 7 elephants died. 4 days after this incident, taking a lesson from it, Railways is now going to take the help of Artificial Intelligence (AI) with the aim of reducing the incidence of collision between wild animals and trains.
Railways has decided to promote Artificial Intelligence (AI) based state-of-the-art technology to prevent accidents caused by collisions between elephants and other wild animals on railway tracks. Under this, an AI-enabled Intrusion Detection System (IDS) based on Distributed Acoustic System (DAS) has been deployed by the Railways, which detects the presence of elephants or other wildlife around the railway tracks and issues a timely alert to the loco pilot.
The project is being used in pilot phase in North Eastern Railway.
The pilot phase of this project is going on in North Eastern Railway. This AI-based Intrusion Detection System (IDS) has been first implemented in 141 route kilometer area of Northeast Frontier Railway. The purpose of which is to prevent incidents of collision with elephants and after the successful operation of this system and positive results, Railways has also decided to expand it further.
Railways has decided that now this system will be expanded to 1,122 route kilometers. Based on the success of the pilot project, Railways has also issued new tenders for 981 route kilometres. With this, the total coverage of this AI-based security system will increase to 1,122 route kilometers.
After all, how does this system work?
Actually, this system keeps an eye on the activities happening around the railway track and recognizes the sound and vibration of elephants and immediately issues an alert. Apart from this, with the help of AI-based cameras and sensors, loco pilots get warning half a kilometer in advance. Besides, real-time alerts are also sent to the station master and control room. Due to which, precautionary measures like reducing or stopping the speed of the train can be taken in time.
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