His plan to avoid it is to use AI

I throw a question into the air: what would you say is the main problem with trains in Spain? There will be those who say that unpunctualityother people who complain about the price and also about those stations in emptied Spain where the train stopped passing a long time ago. It could be worse: it could be elephants being run over.

It may sound like an exotic excuse, but it is a reality that affects a giant like India: between 2019 and 2024 alone, 81 wild elephants died on trains throughout the Asian country, according to official figures of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). One of the most notorious was in December 2025, when the Rajdhani Express ran over a herd of about 100 elephants, causing seven deaths and an injured calf. Five cars and the locomotive derailed and fortunately, there were no human victims, as reported by CNN.

So they have a plan to avoid it: a very technological one that involves using artificial intelligence.

The plan. In fact, the problem is so serious that a few days ago they had a conference titled “Policy Implementation for Minimizing Elephant Mortalities on Railway Tracks” (something like Implementing policies to minimize elephant mortality on railway tracks). It consists of an early warning system with AI and uses a network of 12 cameras mounted on towers equipped with thermal and motion detection technology.

Thus, when an elephant is less than 100 meters from the tracks, the system automatically alerts forestry and railway personnel, so that the train can reduce speed, thus allowing the animals to cross safely. They have already tested it in Madukkarai, Tamil Nadu.

Why is it important. Because it is the first time that automated detection replaces the old human factor at a critical point: a train driver cannot see an elephant at night on a curve, but this system can. In addition, it can raise alarms with enough time to act and avoid disaster. Thus, it turns late detection into real prevention

Context. Elephants in India die so much from railway accidents that It is already the second cause of unnatural mortalityonly ahead of electrocution and ahead of poaching or poisoning. and India houses approximately more than 60% of the world population of Asian elephants.

However, habitat fragmentation and the expansion of railway infrastructure in elephant areas have caused an increase in mortality of these pachyderms, especially in states such as Assam, West Bengal, Uttarakhand, Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Kerala, Chhattisgarh or Jharkhand.

How are they going to do it?. To address the increasing increase in wildlife mortality on railway tracks, the (MoEFCC) along with the Wildlife Institute of India and the Ministry of Railways have identified hot spots for two animals that are National Animal Heritage: 110 sensitive stretches in elephant-inhabited areas and 17 stretches in tiger-inhabited areas. There are many sections and a lot of distance: 3,452.4 km, of which they prioritized 77 sections that comprise 1,965.2 kilometers.

Among the package of measures there are others without AI such as ramps, bridges, underpasses or fences that can fulfill the function of avoiding accidents and facilitating safe passage. They have one more technological tool, called “Intrusion Detection System (IDS) based on Distributed Acoustic System (DAS)” with acoustic sensors that Indian Railways has deployed on 141 kilometers of the Northeast Frontier Railway to detect the presence of elephants on the tracks, generating alerts for train drivers, station masters and control centers. The East Coast Railway of India will adopt this system soon.

AI has already arrived on the Indian railway. In fact, India has already incorporated artificial intelligence systems to improve safety and maintenance. The measures include the TRI-Netra system, which combines optical, infrared and radar cameras with AI to help drivers in conditions of reduced visibility, and the MVIS systems, capable of detecting loose or damaged components in moving trains.

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Cover | Kishore V and Sean Foster