Carrying 23 million passengers daily, Indian Railways is one of the largest rail networks in the world. With more than 10,000 trains running every day across the length and breadth of the country, it is not always easy for a passenger to track the process of his or her specific train. Recognizing the need to provide real-time information on trains, the railways has launched RailRadar, an online application that gives the exact geographical location of moving trains on a Google map on real-time basis. Developed by the Centre for Railway Information System (CRIS), the information technology division of the Indian Railways, in partnership with RailYatri, a start-up focussed on train travel in India, RailRadar (http://railradar.trainenquiry.com/) allows users to watch the movements of trains which are currently running on an interactive map. Currently, the service is available for 6,500 out of the total 10,000 trains that run daily.

The map shows a network of red and blue lines with arrows; while the arrows indicate the direction in which the train is travelling, a red line represents a running train which is delayed by more than 15 minutes and the blue is for those running on time. To find out where your train is, you can enter the train name or its number in the search box on the left and the app will spot it for you. You can also find trains by searching for the name of the station.

“With the launch of RailRadar, we are offering information in an entirely new way about train movement, which is, perhaps, the first for any major railway system in the world,” said Sunil Bajpai, General Manager, CRIS. “Over the last decade, train network and traffic in India have grown tremendously. We are also very sure that this trend will continue over the next few decades. As railway travellers too, today we also want to know more – beyond just an ETA of a train at a station. We believe that value of information can greatly be enhanced when presented graphically rather than just plain text,” the website also declares.