Western Railway’s Railway Protection Force is making effective use of CCTVs in detecting crimes especially pertaining to passenger crimes.To support this motive Facial Recognition System (FRS) based Criminal Dossier Search System has been developed in house by Rajkot Division, which was inaugurated by Ashok Kumar Misra, General Manager of Western Railway.
According to a press release issued by Sumit Thakur, Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railway, the Face Recognition System based Criminal Dossier Search System has been conceptualized & developed as a pilot project by WR’s Rajkot Division which is first of its kind over Indian Railways. This System has been developed with open-source codes, Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning Algorithms. As a token of appreciation, GM Misra declared cash award to the team for developing the innovative system.
Thakur further informed that, this system has been developed under the guidance of P.C. Sinha, IG cum Principal Chief Security Commissioner of Western Railway. Initially, the pilot project of FRS was setup in Divisional Security Commissioner’s office Rajkot in May, 2022 to evaluate feasibility of project & assess multiple face recognition algorithms. Further, evaluation of multiple face recognition algorithms & test cases was done in DSC office environment for over 6 months regarding accuracy of Facial Recognition, differentiation between Human & Animals, impact of light exposure in detection, Photo matching with database, Emotion Detection, Covered Faces Detection & Live tracking of objects etc. The accuracy and confidence level of the in-house FRS setup showed very promising results with accuracy up to 97.3% in initial test result. Later, the setup was tested at Rajkot Station in 2023 to assess the performance in real time environment with accuracy of about 88 – 93%.
Present Status after application of new system: -
1. Selected RPF Train Escort parties in Rajkot Division are using & being trained to identify the suspects/ criminals operating in running trains.
2. Selected RPF Staff deployed at stations of Rajkot Division are given App to take photo of suspects and find criminals operating in Railway areas.
3. Criminal database of over 600 criminals of Rajkot Division has been created and now other dossier detail is being added.
Application for Future Work: -
1. It can be developed & utilized for real time detection of Criminals using FRS across Indian Railways at almost zero cost due to use of customized open-source codes.
2. It can be used for FRS based Attendance marking of Office Staff, Verification of stall vendors & Contractual Labors at stations etc.
3. All other divisions of WR will be provided access.
