May 2014 will see the Indian Railways conducting trials for a new technology that will automatically detect and prevent fire in non-air-conditioned coaches. An offshoot of an Italian technology, which is being modified by the research arm of the Railways — Research Design and Standards Organisation, Lucknow — the new technology is based on sensing the size of the smoke particles and the length of the time from a source of fire to intelligently differentiate between actual fire and false alarms. Once it is able to detect the fire, the system will be designed to either trigger an alarm or activate mist spray or both, depending on the trial results.
