AI-powered alerts help protect 160 elephants on rail tracks in 2025: NFR

Guwahati, Dec 30: The lives of over 160 elephants crossing railway tracks have been successfully saved in 2025, said Maligaon-headquartered Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR).

“NFR has been consistently undertaking proactive and technology-driven initiatives to prevent elephant dashing incidents and ensure safe and uninterrupted train operations across its network. These sustained efforts have yielded encouraging results with over 160 elephant lives successfully protected during 2025 alone,” an official statement cited.

It added, “More than 2,000 elephants have been safely protected while crossing railway tracks across NFR since 2017.”

The NFR expressed that a major step in this direction is the deployment of the Intrusion Detection System (IDS), an advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based technology utilising Distributed Acoustic System (DAS) principles.

The system detects elephant movement near railway tracks and instantly provides real-time alerts to loco pilots and control rooms, enabling timely preventive action and enhancing operational safety.

The IDS has already been successfully commissioned across key sections of the NFR that pass through elephant corridors.

At present, the system is operational in four sections of the NFR.

These are the Kamakhya-Azara-Mirza section (24 km), the Madarihat-Nagrakata section (52 km), the Habaipur-Lamsakhang-Patharkhola-Lumding section (32 km), and the Titabar-Mariani-Nakachari section (23 km).

“Together, these installations cover 62.7 km of elephant corridors and 131 km of block sections, significantly improving safety in sensitive wildlife zones. Building on this success, IDS installation works are currently underway across multiple Divisions, including 174 km in Rangiya, 110 km in Lumding, and 12 km in Tinsukia Division,” the statement said.

It continued, “Upon completion, the system will cover all elephant corridors under NFR, totalling 146.4 km with an overall block section length of 413.42 km, creating a robust and comprehensive safety network,”.

In addition, NFR has also adopted other preventive measures to reduce train-elephant interactions.

“The ‘Plan Bee’ system, installed at vulnerable level crossing gates, uses amplified honeybee sounds audible up to 400 metres to deter elephants from approaching tracks.

In coordination with the forest department, NFR has also enhanced safety through real-time information sharing, night-time speed restrictions in elephant corridors, temporary speed curbs based on sightings, sensitisation of train crews, installation of cautionary signage, and vegetation clearance to improve visibility,” it noted.

At the national level, Indian Railways has strengthened wildlife protection by deploying the IDS to detect elephants and other wildlife near railway tracks.

“Successfully piloted on NFR, the system is now being expanded to other parts of the country. This expansion will cover an additional 981 route kilometres (RKM), taking the total coverage to 1,122 RKM across Indian Railways,” the statement added.