Now, a mathematical formula will be used to optimize the productivity of passenger trains by determining the number of locomotives required for each train, the railways said today.
The railways have a fleet of about 3,300 electric and diesel locomotive passenger trains across the country. Locomotives are deployed to run passenger trains through cyclic schedules called locomotive links.
Hitherto, locomotive links were being manually prepared by the respective sixteen zones to operate the allocated trains.
“Ministry of Railways, with the help of experts, has evolved and implemented the software-based decision support system to optimize the deployment of locomotives to run passenger trains at an all India level,” the ministry said in a statement.
“The decision support system utilizes a mathematical model to work out the minimum number of locomotives required to run all the passenger trains as per timetable while meeting the maintenance and operations requirements,” it said.