By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has begun real-time monitoring of over 700 trains which have been fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS).

The system, called the Control Office Application (COA), will help track the inter-station movement of over 700 trains on the Indian Railways network.

The system was designed as a collaborative effort between the national transporter and ISRO to enable monitoring of passenger and freight trains and help automatically feed information about their movement directly to the control room.

Officials claimed the real-time monitoring, apart from helping track movement of trains, will also help the national transporter to crackdown on thefts of fright commodities like coal and oil.

“Tracking and tackling of thefts will become easy now as it will not be easy to stop freight trains in between two stations,” a Railway Protection Force official said.

The Railways gets a major share of its revenue from freight services but thefts have been a major cause of concern. The new system will help the railways modernise control rooms and rail network.