RAILWAY AND BRIDGE ENGINEERING

Automatic Railway Gate Control

PREPARED BY:
Kuvar Pranai Prabhakar
Kuvar Aakanksha Prabhakar
Pawar Sakshi Vijay

GUIDED BY:
Pooja Gore Mam

Introduction
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RAILWAY AND BRIDGE ENGINEERING

Railways being one of the safest and cheapest modes of transportation are preferred over all
the other means of transport. So, it is essential to maintain and improve the current level of
safety. A safe railway is more efficient and also a more attractive transport choice, enabling
society to address the environmental and economic challenges of the 21st century. Railway
safety is a crucial aspect of rail operation the world over. There are regular newspaper reports
about railway accidents occurring at different railway level crossings and many people lost
their lives in such accidents. There is a lack of modern management as railways failed to
provide adequate incentives to attract suitable talent. In addition to it, it could not make
economic analysis for perspective planning tariff. The rolling stock technology is absolutely
outmoded. The system is beset with excessive staff and manpower development has not kept
pace with technology up gradation. This has made railways incapable of coping with
increased transport demand and of raising and improving the traffic volume and flows at
lower unit cost of operation. Most of the railway lines are single lines which create great
inconvenience to the railway organization and passengers. Although the development of
railways took place rapidly, still there are enormous problems in the path of its steady
growth. The major problem faced by Indian railways is that the tracks are old and obsolete.
These old tracks cause many serious railway accidents. This has also resulted in speed
restrictions. Virtually, in every new timetable, running time of all trains has been increased
while railways in other advanced countries are reducing it drastically Another problem that is
being faced in India is that a large number of passengers travel without purchasing tickets.
The incidence of railway accidents in India is greater as compared to other countries of the
world. Accidents also occur due to the errors and negligence of the employees. In the present
paper it is tried to automate all the necessary operations in railways i.e. controlling of gates,
identifying the person who is unnecessarily pulling the emergency chain, alerting the station
master about the location of train, identification of crack in railway track and anti-collision
technique. In order to reduce accidents in unmanned railway crossings it is proposed to have
an automatic gate control system at the crossings. The arrival of the train at the crossing in
terms of distance is calculated and informed to the staff of railways through GSM which
enables lesser closing times of the railway gates for the road transport users. In addition to
this, the fault in railway track as well as a message is carried to the station master when there
is another train on the same track.The railway systems in India and other countries are the
most commonly used mode of transportation and it is also one of the low cost modes of
transportation. There are thousands of rails running on track every day. In railway systems it
is impossible to stop some of the critical situations or emergencies that occur during the
running of the train. Every year nearly 20,000 people lose their lives in railway crossing
accidents. The system which is used today by the Indian railways at the railway crossings is
not reliable and safe. The railway gates are manually operated by a gatekeeper when any
communication mismatch occurs while sending the train status to the gatekeeper this will
lead to accidents at railway crossing. The present solution is not the best and efficient way to
handle railway gates and it is very error prone. A railway crossing is an intersection of a road
and a railway track. It requires human coordination to open and close the gates when the train
arrives at the crossing station.In order to avoid the human mistakes which occur while
operating the gates a new automatic railway crossing system is developed using lot.In order
to avoid the number of accidents occurring at railway crossings and reduce the maximum
time delay at railway crossing we proposed a solution which is used to automate the manual

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operations of the railway crossing system using lot.Our System will provide a smart solution
to the railway crossing systemand provides a high accurate and reliable solution to operate
the railway gates.

Project Objective:
Provide an automatic railway gate at level crossing replacing the gates operated by the
gatekeeper for:
 Reduction of time for closing and opening the gate.
 Higher reliability as it is not subjected to manual errors.
 Provide safety to the road users by reducing the accidents.

Level crossing:
A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road or path at the same
level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using a bridge or tunnel. The term
also applies when a light rail line with separate right-of-way or reserved track crosses a road
in the same fashion. Other names include railway level crossing, grade crossing, and road
through railroad, railroad crossing, train crossing, and RXR.

History of level crossing:

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The history of level crossings depends on the location, but often early level crossings had a
flagman in a nearby booth who would, on the approach of a train, wave a red flag or lantern
to stop all traffic and clear the tracks. Gated crossings became commonplace in many areas,
as they protected the railway from people trespassing and livestock, and they protected the
users of the crossing when closed by the signalman/gateman. In the second quarter of the
20th century, manual or electrical closable gates that barricaded the roadway started to be
introduced, intended to be a complete barrier against intrusion of any road traffic onto the
railway. Automatic crossings are now commonplace in some countries as motor vehicles
replaced horse-drawn vehicles and the need for animal protection diminished with time. Full,
half or no barrier crossings superseded gated crossings, although crossings of older types can
still be found in places. New technology is advancing to create new ways of protecting the
railway from users of a level crossing, with one of the most recent being obstacle detection
scanners fitted to some crossings in Europe. In rural regions with sparse traffic, the least
expensive type of level crossing to operate is one without flagmen or gates, with only a
warning sign posted. This type has been common across North America and in many
developing countries. Some international rules have helped to harmonize level crossing.

Hardware Implementation:
 Micro Controller
 Power supply
 Buzzer and light signals: to warn the road user
 Two IR (Infrared) sensors
 12 V Dc Motor

Software Requirement:
 Languages:

Assembly language program (ALP) like c, c++ ..,

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 The arrival of train is detected by the sensor placed on either side of gate at about 5km
from the level crossing.
 Once the arrival is sensed, the sensed signal is sent to the microcontroller.
 Subsequently, buzzer inclination and light signals on either side are provided to the
road users indicating the closure of gates.
 The departure of the train is detected by sensors placed at about 1km from the gate.
 The signals about the departure are sent to the microcontroller, which in turn operates
the motor and opens the gate.

Block Diagram:

Circuit Diagram of IR Sensor module:

IR Circuits:

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This circuit has two stages:

 IR receiver
The receiver unit consists of a sensor and its associated circuitry. In receiver section, the first
part is a sensor, which detects IR pulses transmitted by IR-LED.
 Whenever a train crosses the sensor, the output of IR sensor momentarily transits
through a low state.
 As a result constable is triggered; a short pulse is applied to the port pin of the
microcontroller.
 On receiving a pulse from the sensor circuit, the over controller activates the circuitry
for closing and opening of the gates and for track switching.

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