How is artificial intelligence used to save elephants who are in danger of being hit by the train
Elefanti (photo source Lianquan Yu, Dreamstime.com)
A province of India has developed a warning system that saves the elephants that reach the railway rails and are in great danger of being hit by the train. The system is composed of wake -up towers, warning sensors and video cameras, but people also need.
In India, about 30,000 elephants live, and the official estimates show that 75 died from the train, between 2018 and 2023.
The prevention system was implemented in the Indian province of Tamil Nadu, where in ten years 36 elephants were hit by the train.
12 towers were installed with a total of 24 video cameras, all forming a warning system that is triggered when an elephant approaches more than 30 meters of railway. There is also a control room where there are four people, if you need to intervene to remove them on rail elephants.
Publications such as BBC and Times of India have written about the program. The cost of the project is almost a million dollars.
The waking towers were installed in November 2023, in the places where most accidents occurred in the past. When an elephant approaches dangerously close to the railway, infrared rooms detect this, the alarm is triggered and workers from Indian Railways, but also forests.
In some cases, trains are transmitted signal to slow down, so that elephants can safely cross such a case was in another area of India, and a flock of 28 elephants could safely cross the railway. To do this, a freight train stationed 30 minutes in the nearest station.
Since the system is in force, no elephant has been hit in problem areas.
The data in the system show that over 6,500 elephants have crossed the railway in the “guard” system, since it is functional.
Over time there have been many railway incidents in which elephants were involved. In 2012, a quick train hit a flock of elephants in eastern India, killing five of them.
Photo source: dreamstime.com
