With Thousands Of “Fog Pass Devices” Deployed, Indian Railways Clocking Over 90 Per Cent Punctuality Despite Heavy Fog

In a positive development, the punctuality of the Indian Railways' trains has marked a significant surge from less than 75 per cent in the past few years to as high as 96-97 per cent in the recent months, reports Times of India.

Interestingly, even on the days of heavy fog, the punctuality in recent times has been recorded to be at 90 per cent compared to around 60 per cent in the previous years.

These are GPS-based hand-held devices which help the crew navigate through foggy weather using audio-visual alarm whenever any landmark comes within the geo-fence range.

This comes as the Indian Railways has almost doubled the installation of "fog pass devices" in the past two years. Of the total 12,742 such devices in use, nearly 3,000 have been deployed in trains which run across the Northern Railway, given the impact of fog is high in the Northern parts of the country.

Thereafter, 1,716 devices are deployed in East Central Railway and another 1,289 devices in North Central Railway.

Meanwhile, it should be noted that almost 65 per cent of the mail express trains have resumed their services after they were suspended in March last year in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.