Tanaka wants to augment the operational performance of rails
Indian Railways is expanding its digital footprints on every aspect of rail transport and is ready to share its experience and expertise with members of the Trans-Asian railway network and especially with those countries that are starting their rail digitalization journey.
Chairman of Indian Railways Anil Kumar Lahoti stated this at a High-Level Conference on Accelerating Rail Digital Transformation in Asia and Pacific region which was held in New Delhi 5-6 April 2023.
Trans-Asian railway network provides a coordinated plan for developing a regional rail network to support intra and inter-regional trade and transport.
The 128,000-km rail network passes through 28 countries and was formalized through an Inter-governmental Agreement on Trans-Asian Railway network that entered into force in 2009.
Also addressing the conference, the Head of the UN ESCAP office in New Delhi Mikiko Tanaka has emphasized the need to leverage digitalization to further augment the operational performance of rail and increase freight and passenger transport by rail to support countries in realization of sustainable development goals.
The Conference deliberated on ways and means to accelerate rail digital transformation in Asia and the Pacific to enhance competitiveness of rail transport to attract more freight and passenger to rail transport.
The participating countries deliberated on a regional strategy on accelerating rail digital transformation in Asia and the Pacific that was presented by Sandeep Raj Jain, official from the Transport Division of UN ESCAP head office in Thailand.
The proposed strategy aims to provide coherence and momentum to current initiatives on rail digitalization; foster an ecosystem to harnesses full potential of rail digitalization; augment the operational performance, capacity, reliability, safety, and security of rail assets; enhance customer experience including ease of doing business; create synergies through partnerships to digitalize rail; and ensure high level political support on rail digitalization. It further identifies eight priority areas and five cross cutting issues to deepen the regional cooperation on accelerating rail digital transformation.
Among the cross-cutting issues, the strategy proposes to set up a regional capacity building programme on rail digital transformation with a pool of experts to enhance digital skills of railway officials. For financing rail digital projects, the strategy suggests countries to establish a rail digital and innovation fund as multi-donor trust fund to support landlocked and least developing countries to leapfrog to digital technologies.
On strengthening rail cybersecurity, it advocates developing a regional framework for rail cybersecurity for sharing of information, capacity building and learning from experience.
The strategy also aims to heighten engagement with private sector by encouraging countries to supportive legal and regulatory framework that attract private investments and expertise in rail digital applications.
The proposed strategy also provides for implementation arrangements with suggestion to formulate national and sub-regional strategies on rail digitalization and measuring progress through developing a rail digital and innovation index complemented by three level of maturity for rail digitalization.
The Conference participants welcomed the draft strategy on accelerating rail digital transformation presented by ESCAP secretariat and underlined that its adoption and subsequent implementation can fast track rail digitalization, particularly, for landlocked and least developing countries of the region.
Jaya Varma Sinha, Member Operations and Business Development of Railway Board, informed the Conference on the willingness of the Indian railways to support regional rail digitalization initiatives through platform provided by ESCAP.
The two-day Conference ended with a recommendation to adopt the regional strategy on accelerating rail digital transformation by the members of Trans-Asian Railway network, Ministry of Railways said in a release on 7 April 2023. fiinews.com
