Use of sensor cameras in detecting wildlife near railway lines to prevent Train-Wildlife Collision (TWC) in Tamil Nadu, India
Picture 1: Thermal image of an elephant family approaching the railway tracks in Madukkarai, Tamil Nadu (Source: Tamil Nadu Forest Department)
In southern India, the landscape of Madukkarai is characterized by its location on the hill sides of the Western Ghats with an average elevation of 311 metres. It serves as the gateway to Coimbatore city from Kerala state and has a mix of rich vegetation and forest cover, which forms part of the elephant corridor stretching towards Tamil Nadu-Kerala border.
The state of Tamil Nadu has 3,063 Asian Elephants (Elephas Maximus), and has been slowly increasing the population after a sharp decline from 4,015 to 2,761 elephants between 2012-2017 (Department, 2024).
Madukkarai has a railway station on the Coimbatore-Shoranur line which is significantly used for both passenger and freight trains. This railway line acts as a barrier for elephants and other wildlife moving through this landscape necessitating effective solutions to reduce accidents and maintain the ecological corridor for wildlife.
Train Elephant Collision (TEC) has been accounted as one of major contributors to unnatural deaths of Elephants across the country. Between 2009-2010 and 2020-2021, a total of 186 elephants died because of TEC in India (Project Elephant - Wildlife Institute of India, 2025). Likewise, other animals die on the railway tracks where most small sized animals go unnoticed and scavenged.
Between 2016-2022 , a total of 6 elephants died of TEC in Tamil Nadu due to TEC. Learning from these incidents, Department of Forests in Tamil Nadu introduced a real-time monitoring of wildlife in the vicinity of railway lines in the 9 km railway stretch in Madukkarai within elephant corridor. Since the implementation of the AI-based thermal cameras in monitoring wildlife movement in the area in November 2023, the collaborative action between forest and railway frontline staff has been able to manage 6,592 elephant crossings with no elephant deaths recorded in the section so far.
Wildlife monitoring is being executed by the forest department through 12 towers and 24 AI-based thermal cameras each having a radial coverage of about 3 km. 25 Forest staff are deployed to maintain the surveillance system. For example, when elephants are detected within 100 ft. of the railway tracks, alerts are sent to forest and railway officials. The message then gets relayed to the loco-pilots of the approaching trains, who timely stop trains.
This technological solution is a promising non-structural mitigation measure to warn locomotive pilots through early-warning system thereby intervening timely to stop negative interaction between train and wildlife.
Picture 2: Vulnerable locations of Railway track in Madukkarai (Source: Tamil Nadu Forest Department)
The technical backstopping is being provided by a tech-based company Binomial Solutions which has been engaged in similar wildlife detection works in various protected areas across India. This thermal camera technology was first initiated in 2011 in Corbett Tiger Reserve where they were used to detect illegal activities in the forest including illegal logging and poaching. Modernizing the technology and lately by the use of Artificial Intelligence, the company has been able to reduce the number of false calls to a significant number enabling the technicians to verify limited calls thereby enhancing the effectiveness of the system.
The wildlife monitoring system has been setup to cover vulnerable railway stretches within the Solakkarai Beat in Madukkarai, Tamil Nadu. A total of 7.05 km of railway tracks is prone to train-wildlife collision. Animals, especially the Asian Elephants use this route to traverse between Nilgiri Eastern Ghats and Anamalai Hills of Tamil Nadu where animals used to get trapped in the railway tracks. Smart surveillance system now detects these animals alerting the system, eventually sending signals to the locomotive pilots averting the probable danger ahead.
Tamil Nadu Forest Department initiated this activity by deploying ‘Binomial Solutions’ – a technology-based company which has pioneered in animal-detection technology- ‘e eye’ which uses Closed-Circuit Television (CCTV) and thermal sensor cameras.
The surveillance system was operationalized in 2023 November by installing 24 cameras in 12 towers operated by a control centre where trained forest staffs monitor the wildlife presence signals received by the thermal cameras. The tower height ranges from 12 to 15 meters depending upon the ground conditions. The signals produced by the cameras are validated by the forest staff where the system continually learns through Machine Learning models, and accuracy is maintained with a growing number of feeds, explains Ravikant Singh (47), Chief Executive Officer of Binomial Solutions who has pioneered this technology using the sturdy thermal cameras.
These Marine grade PTZ (Pan-Tilt-Zoom) cameras are connected through fibre optics and powered using reliable electricity and can be remotely controlled. These cameras can be set up to manoeuvre in required time-direction-tilt as required based on the maximum possibility of detecting wildlife. The cameras are placed such that there would be no blind spots but have overlaps in the coverage area ensuring no animal is undetected.
Various animals including leopard, Nilgai, Gaur, Deer and many other species have been recorded in the railway track. 4 locals from indigenous community have been trained to technically handle the system who regularly maintain technical system and train other forest frontline staff when in need.
Picture 3: Google Earth image of the site location showing forest connectivity
Intrigued by ideas to curb illegal poaching and minimize human-wildlife conflict incidents within Corbett Tiger Reserve through technological innovations, Ravikant Singh along with Raja Brijbhusan, both Information Technology graduates formed a company in 2009. They patented the innovation of Real-time Anti-poaching surveillance and Wildlife tracking system in 2010. Later, Binomial Solutions won the best innovation award in 2018 in the Wildlife Crime Tech Challenge for the technology e-Eye® (Electronic Eye) invented to safeguard wildlife in a global competition organized by USAID in collaboration with Smithsonian, National Geographic and TRAFFIC.
The total cost of setting up the surveillance system in Tamil Nadu Forest Department in 2024 February was nearly USD 867,758 as per Supriya Sahu, Additional Chief Secretary, Ministry of Environment Climate Change and Forests, Government of Tamil Nadu which is producing invaluable outcomes safeguarding wildlife movement across vulnerable railway tracks.
There exists a 56 km single track railway line with double electric line between Coimbatore and Palakkad Junction and has 9 stations in between. This railway track is managed by Salem Division of Southern Railway whose 7.05 km track falls under wildlife corridor within the Solakkarai Beat fragmented at two different sites (Line A and B as shown in Picture 2). This is a vulnerable stretch which is being used by wildlife especially elephants to move across its habitats. Weekly schedule of Southern Railway shows that 66 long distance passenger trains encompasses through this route every week with an average speed of 40 km/hr.
The command center has 24-hrs on-duty staffs who regularly monitor the triggers sent by the e-eye softwares and validate the information before relaying the message of wildlife presence in proximity of the rail tracks. The Command Center also receives information from the frontline forest staff which message is transferred to the railway station master at the nearest station. The message then gets relayed to the loco-pilots of approaching trains to make sure adequate steps are taken well in advance to ensure probable interaction between train and wildlife could be averted.
Use of technology has proven successful in safeguarding wildlife movement across critical forest stretches especially wildlife corridors fragmented by linear infrastructures. The use of thermal camera-based surveillance system adopted by Tamil Nadu Forest Department is showing promising results where wildlife casualty scenario has been prevented. This technology can be replicated in various other stretches which has similar challenges posed by linear infrastructures especially Railways and Roads across wildlife corridors.
Mr. Ravikant sounded confident that the number of iterations of the false triggers sent by AI-based model has significantly reduced over the time. The machine-learning model has been tested well and this technology is being widely adopted by forest departments across various other parts of the country for multiple use including reducing Human-Wildlife Conflicts, curbing poaching incidents among other.
Picture 4: Official monitoring the System at the control room (Source: BBC)
Author
Pramod Neupane - Amity Institute of Forestry and Wildlife, Amity University
References cited
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Tamil Nadu Forest Department, 2024. Synchronized Elephant Population Estimation Tamil Nadu.
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Editor:
Melissa Butynski
Cite this case study:
Neupane, P. (2025). Use of sensor cameras in detecting wildlife near railway lines to prevent Train-Wildlife Collision (TWC) in Tamil Nadu, India. Edited by Butynski, M. Transport Ecology.info, Accessed at https://transportecology.info/case-studies/mitigating-elephant-train-collisions