Centre For Railway Information Systems (CRIS)

Centre For Railway Information Systems (CRIS) was established in the year 1986 by Ministry of Railways with focus to provide consulting and IT services to Indian Railways - as partners to conceptualize and realize technology driven business transformation initiatives. Our presence across the country gives us global reach and a vast rollout support capability. Our approach focuses on new ways of business combining IT innovation and adoption while also leveraging an organization's current IT assets. We work with Indian Railways to build new products or services and to implement prudent business and technology strategies in today's dynamic digital environment.

In 1982,Government conceived a project for analysing a Freight Operations Information Systems(FOIS)with Railways Subsequently in 1986,Ministry of Railways established the CENTRE FOR RAILWAY INFORMATION SYSTEMS (CRIS), Chanakya Puri, New Delhi - 21 to be an umbrella organisation for all computer activities on Indian Railways (IR).They also entrusted it with the task of design, development and implementation of the FOIS, alongwith its associated communications infrastructure. The Centre started functioning from July,1987.It is a registered society having an autonomous status and headed by Managing Director .CRIS is mainly a project oriented organisation engaged in development of major computer systems on the Railways. Our presence across the country gives us global reach and a vast rollout support capability. Together with our formidable team of high-caliber software professionals we have successfully positioned ourselves at the vanguard of the global IT service s revolution. With such a rich practical experience, a dedicated team of professionals and its own R&D effort, CRIS aims to be a leader in this fast developing field. CRIS provides consulting and IT services to Indian Railways - as partners to conceptualize and realize technology driven business transformation initiatives. With over 200 employees nationwide, we use a low-risk Delivery Model to accelerate schedules with a high degree of time and cost predictability. We provide solutions for a dynamic environment where business and technology strategies converge.
Our approach focuses on new ways of business combining IT innovation and adoption while also leveraging an organization's current IT assets. We work with Indian Railways to build new products or services and to implement prudent business and technology strategies in today's dynamic digital environment.

UTS - UNRESERVED TICKETING SYSTEM 
About UTS

Twenty million passengers travel daily on Indian Railways using the unreserved journey facility. An unreserved ticket authorizes these journeys but as the name implies, offers no reserved seats or berths. The ticket is not specific to a train service either. This facility is predominantly used by commuters and suburban travelers – over short distances where assured seating is not a necessity. It is also available to lower income groups travelling longer distances and connects the rural hinterland to districts, towns and cities. Tickets are issued to the unreserved passenger any time of day or night as booking offices remain open 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

The Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) caters to this segment of the market and seeks to provide a centrally administered computerized ticketing system over the entire Indian Railways. Today more than ninety percent of the unreserved tickets are sold through this system. The ability of the system to deliver ticketing at remote corners of the country and provide uninterrupted services everywhere has been lauded by the Government of India and the project along with the CRIS team responsible for its initial design and implementation won the Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration. Details regarding the project are provided here and if you have any questions or want to contact us email us at uts@cris.org.in. 

COA – CONTROL OFFICE APPLICATION 

About COA

Train operations on the Indian Railways are controlled and monitored by the Control Rooms in each of the seventy seven divisional offices. The Control Room is the nerve center of the division. The fluidity of train movements over the jurisdiction of the division is dependent on the efficiency of the Control Room operations. The Control office, by its very nature never shuts down and works all hours of the day and every day of the week. The Control Office Application has changed the way the trains are monitored as train movements are captured in real time and movement of scheduled and unscheduled trains planned and controlled through the computer aided interface.

The Control Office Application is the latest addition to train operations related IT applications. Along with Freight Operations Information System (FOIS), COA has led to all information on train operations being computer generated. It is this application that feeds the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) that provides passengers up to date information on train running. The objective of the Indian Railways is to further improve the operations by using technological aids that enable quicker data capture and intelligent applications that provide better planning and forecasting tools. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at coa@cris.org.in.

FOIS – FREIGHT OPERATIONS INFORMATION SYSTEM 

About FOIS

The Indian Railways carries nearly 900 million tonnes of freight in a year. This translates to about 5000 freight trains daily. Freight trains bring two thirds of the Indian Railway revenues and are referred to as the bread earners for the Railways. The major commodities carried by Indian Railways are Coal, Iron Ore, Foodgrains, Iron & Steel, Cement, Petroleum products, Fertilizer and Containerized Traffic. There are specialized wagons to handle the transportation needs of the different types of commodities. Unlike passenger carrying trains, freight trains do not run to a fixed schedule and thus making freight operations a highly information intensive activity. Based on this information managers make allocation decisions continually to dynamically optimize utilization of resources like wagons, locomotives, crew and paths on the network. Real time information allows good decision making and thus ensures high levels of mobility within the system.

The Freight Operations Information System (FOIS) was the first project which CRIS embarked upon. In fact the creation of CRIS is a by product of this effort in the mid eighties. FOIS began as an application to track and monitor the movement of wagons, locomotives and unit trains. Now it is a complete management module for freight trains handling the billing and revenue collections as well. It has played a major role in the improved wagon productivity on Indian Railways and the objective is to use the information to further improve productivity, customer service and thus meet the needs of a rapidly growing economy. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at fois@cris.org.in. 

ICMS – INTEGRATED COACH MANAGEMENT SYSTEM 

About ICMS

Millions of passengers book their journeys everyday with the confidence that when their train rolls up on the appointed day, it would bring a coach which has place for them. To meet this expectation day in day out, Indian Railways need to track over 50 thousand coaches. By efficiently deploying the fleet, railways are able to run more services for the benefit of their passengers, while minimising any chances of disruption and disappointment. IR also must ensure that these assets receive timely servicing and maintenance. Depending upon the need, the system can deliver historical records from past years in printed reports, or up-to-the-minute information on an official’s cell phone.

The Integrated Coach Management System does exactly all this and more. There are three modules that give a comprehensive view to the managers and facilitate quick identification of available resources and their allocation as per the requirements. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at icms@cris.org.in. 

NTES – NATIONAL TRAIN ENQUIRY SYSTEM  

Although Indian Railways is known for its punctuality in train running, at times for reasons beyond the control of Indian railways trains get delayed, are rescheduled from their starting station, cancelled or diverted to another route resulting in change in the actual Arrival/Departure time from its scheduled time. To save the inconvenience caused to Rail users due to these changes in train running, National Train Enquiry System (NTES) provides information to public about expected Arrival/Departure of train at each stopping station, train schedule information, information about cancelled trains, diverted trains, and platform berthing information. 

 The main goal and objective behind NTES system to provide timely and reliable information to general public through user friendly interfaces and PAN India accessibility has been achieved to a large extent and now the information is conveniently and reliably available to public all over the country through various delivery channels i.e. through web browsing, through mobile phone or landline (voice and SMS) and also in person at all IR stations. NTES has won National Award for e-Governance 2010-2011 for Innovative use of ICT by PSUs for customer's benefit and “National Train Enquiry System (NTES)” was adjudged as a Finalist in the Computerworld Honors Program instituted by the Computerworld Information Technology Awards Foundation, USA. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at ntes@cris.org.in. 

PRS – PASSENGER RESERVATION SYSTEM

Reserved travel by Indian Railways is facilitated by the Passenger Reservation System (PRS). PRS provides reservation services to nearly 1.5 to 2.2 million passengers a day on over 2500 trains running throughout the country. The PRS Application CONCERT (Country-wide Network of Computerized Enhanced Reservation and Ticketing) is the world’s largest online reservation application, developed and maintained by CRIS. The system currently operates from 5 Data centers. The server clusters are connected together by a core network that enables universal terminals across country, through which the travelling public can reserve a berth on any train, between any pair of station for any date and class. 

PRS web site was awarded Web Ratna Platinum Icon Award in year 2009 under Citizen Centric Service category. PRS application has been awarded by Computer Society of India for best IT usage in the year 1999. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at prs@cris.org.in. 

SATSaNG – SOFTWARE AIDED TRAIN SCHEDULING

Many people find it extremely fascinating to pore over the Railway time table, especially while undertaking a train journey. The route that the train traverses through, the stations en route both significant and lesser known ones, the timings and the stoppages – all these are part of the romance of train journeys. The time table is something like the compass was for the early traveller or the star studded night sky for the seafarer.

Creating a time table for trains on a busy network like the Indian Railways is an extremely challenging task. Planners on the Zonal Railways work independently and then collaboratively with other Zonal level planners to design the All India time table. The two main objectives are that it should be convenient to the passenger and feasible to run on the system. Introducing new train services and augmenting older ones is an art and a select group of planners are highly skilled in this task. Indian Railways decided to provide software tools to aid the planning process. The Software Aided Train Scheduling and Network Governance (SATSaNG) project is entrusted with the task of building such a tool. The entire resource allocation process will now be aided by the tool leading to more efficient allocations and robust time tables. If you have any further questions or suggestions email us at satsang@cris.org.in. 

Right To Information Act, 2005

MD CRIS/New Delhi has nominated the following officers, who can be contacted for seeking information under the ACT.

	Public Information Officer	Appellate Authority
Name	Mrs. Kusum Singh	Shri S.B. Roy
Designation	General Manager/HRD	Director/RP
Address	Room No. 222, Center for Railway Information Systems Chanakyapuri New Delhi	Room No. 107, Center for Railway Information Systems Chanakyapuri New Delhi
Phone (Office)	26112514	26877896
FAX	26877893	24672421
Email		sbroy@cris.org.in
Our Postal Address :
Centre for Railway Information Systems, (An Organisation Under Ministry of Railways) Chanakyapuri, New Delhi-110021 Phone : 24104525, 24106717   Fax : 26877893