With a view to promote Railway related education and research Ministry of Railways has been taking significant steps in setting up Centres of Railway Research (CRR) in collaboration with premier Educational Institutions of India. Formal MoUs for setting up such centers have already been signed between Ministry of Railways and University of Mumbai, IIT Kanpur, IIT Madras, IIT Roorkee. Another Fifth Center for Railway Research is also in existence in IIT Kharagpur. These Centers for Railway Research are working to contribute immensely towards providing solutions for utilization of Railways assets in a more cost effective manner and its various processes towards complete customer satisfaction.
To expand the areas of research further, Indian Railways have also set up the Malaviya Chair at IIT BHU, Varanasi for development of proper materials for use by Indian Railways. In addition, a ‘Chair on Sustainable Mobility’ has also been set up at TERI University, New Delhi.
Railways Research arm viz., Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO) based at Lucknow is coordinating with all the CRRs and chairs.
The areas of research have also been earmarked for these different CRRs based on the core competencies of the different institutes. The assigned areas of the CRRs include:
- CRR, IIT Roorkee: Civil Infrastructure of High Speed Rail, Bridges and structures, Track management system, Environmental Engineering, Rail wheel dynamics, etc.
- CRR, IIT Kanpur : Geo-Tech Engineering, Advanced Fuel efficient systems, Fire Safety Management, Advanced electronics, High speed Rolling stock design, Advanced Signalling and Fog vision etc.
- CRR, IIT Madras : Structural Health Monitoring of Railway Infrastructure, Intelligent transportation, Computer vision and imaging, reliability engineering, energy management etc.
- CRR, Mumbai University: Research related to Heavy Haul Technology, High-Speed Technologies, Energy Efficient Traction Power Supply Systems, Track Research, etc. The CRR will in due course also offer degree programme, post graduate programmes and PhD programme in research areas related to Railways and will also involve students in research projects and offer course electives related to Railway technology. Mumbai University’s academic council has recently approved a undergraduate course in Railway Engineering for the current academic year at theRailway Research Centre at their Ratnagiri sub-campus.