Fog cancellations, delays here to stay

Vibha Sharma

The trouble with fog is its unpredictability during the months of December and January in North India. It can come and go with sudden ease. The trouble with airlines and trains during this period is the predictability of cancellations and delays. The pattern hasn’t changed over the years, and is unlikely to in the times to come.
The air carriers and Railways cite serious limitations, funds being the foremost, in ensuring normal operations in the foggy weather, but maintain that they do not compromise on security. “Better safe than sorry,” says a Railways official, while nodding in acknowledgement to a question about the inconvenience the unprepared passengers have to face in the biting cold as the train delays run into hours together.
The cab signaling rail technology that can circumvent fog is costly and experts question its utility for “a phenomenon that lasts 25 to 30 days in a limited region”. “If the money is available, there are better uses for a cash-starved organisation,” they say.
So, the Railways has more or less been using the same procedure to operate in fog since its inception with some improvisations over the years. “Drivers are given instructions to take no risk even if they have to walk up to the next signal to see if it is green or red. With the extra precautions we have been taking, there has been no major incident in the past three years. Improvements are needed but safety is more important,” a senior Railways official reasons.
As far as air travel is concerned, the bottomline is that even if the most-advanced Instrument Landing System (ILS) facility — CAT-III-C — is installed to ensure landings in zero visibility, there are various overriding factors. “Even if one puts aside the money issues, is it worthwhile to take risk for that one in a million chance when the technology might fail and put precious lives at risk to land in such a situation?” asks an official.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi, for example, is CAT III-B compliant, but most carriers are not, and neither are the crews trained. The operators reason that since the number of foggy days is limited and the problem is confined to North India, instead of spending huge amounts of money to equip aircraft and train pilots, it makes business sense in the tough economic conditions to just take it as a seasonal anomaly. 
Fog is largely limited to the northern plains of Punjab, Haryana, Delhi, western Uttar Pradesh and parts of eastern UP and Bihar. In fact, its being limited to a small area is one of the main reasons why spending more money to circumvent it is considered a bad business idea. 
Seasoned aviators also talk about “technology failing to keep up with changing weather”. Low temperatures, presence of moisture, clear skies and still air are among the prerequisites for fog formation. However, higher suspended particulate matter (SPM) levels intensify the situation, providing the nucleus and the catalyst even when the other four conditions are not so favourable.
“There is no low-cost technical solution to ensure normal train movement in the fog. The emphasis is on safe movement, close monitoring of staff, proper dissemination of train running information and to look after proper operations of public conveniences. All this we are being able to fulfill to a great extent," claims Northern Railway CPRO Neeraj Sharma. The passengers though may have a differently story to tell.

High cost, so landings avoided

For a paying passenger, any flight cancellation, any delay or any change in the schedule due to fog is unacceptable. Therefore, the question is that if the technology is available, why are there delays and cancellations? The Airport Authority of India’s list of technical reasons is long.
CAT stands for the category of the Instrument Landing System (ILS). The ILS is a radio beam transmitter that provides a direction for approaching aircraft, which tune their receivers to its frequency. It is a ground-based instrument approach system that provides precise lateral and vertical guidance to enable a safe landing in reduced visibility due to fog, rain or snow.
A take-off has nothing to do with the CAT compliance of an airport, an aircraft or a pilot. It’s all got to do with landing. There are three categories of ILS equipment for landing operations. With CAT-I, the visibility required is 1,550 metres, with CAT-II it is 300 metres and with CAT-III’s A, B and C sub-categories, it is 75, 50 and 0 metres, respectively.
The Indira Gandhi International Airport in New Delhi is CAT III-B equipped; that is, the visibility criteria for a CAT III-B landing is up to 50 metres of the Runway Visual Range or RVR. In case the RVR drops below 50 metres, no aircraft is permitted to land in Delhi and is diverted.
Similarly, no aircraft can take off if the Runway Visual Range falls below 125 metres. For the take-off at 125 metres’ visual range, the pilot should have an airfield with good visibility, or say good ILS, at a one-hour distance in case there is an engine failure. That is the reason why there are delays in taking off from the New Delhi airport because the nearby airports do not have the adequate facilities to permit landing in case there is a problem.
The normal diversions for a take-off from IGIA can be Jaipur, Lucknow and Chandigarh. However, apart from Lucknow, the other two only have the basic CAT-I compliance. While the Amritsar, Lucknow and Kolkata airports are CAT-II equipped, at the Jaipur airport CAT-II operations are in the planning phase. Along with CAT compliance at airports, the aircraft too has to be compliant along with a duly trained crew.
The fact is that apart from the state-funded Air India, most of the other airlines have “just about a couple of aircraft” with CAT-III compliance to allow landing in 50-75 metre visibility.

Upgrade costly, operators wary

So what is stopping airlines from upgrading aircraft and training the crew to match the ILS facilities at IGIA?
According to airline operators, it costs money, and a whole lot of it, to upgrade the aircraft and pilots to CAT III and further on to CAT III-B. All aircraft and flying crew are basic CAT-I compliant. Expenditure on a further upgrade does not balance with the returns. It takes anywhere around $700 per hour for CAT-III training, they say. “There are three issues: ground certification, aircraft certification and crew qualification. Each aircraft has a basic ILS for which no special qualification is required. But to upgrade, the company will have to spend extra money on the aircraft and the crew. The technology is there, but the question is, are the airlines ready to invest and is the investment worthwhile for the short time that the fog lasts, that too in North India?” questions an airline official.
Experts also agree that it does not make business sense, especially when the cash-strapped airlines are just about trying to keep afloat. Says aviation expert Brij Bhardwaj: “Pilots have to be trained every year, which is a costly process for the airlines. The number of foggy days is limited. So instead of spending that kind of money to equip aircraft and train pilots, they find it easier to avoid those periods. The passengers suffer but for airlines it is the question of survival and economics.”
Consider this: in the current financial year, the Indian aviation industry is expected to end up with losses of around Rs 8,500 crore, adding to the cumulative losses of around Rs 60,000 crore in the past six to seven years. “Heathrow also has diversions and delays. The problem is that here in India we are zero on patience. If we have bought a ticket worth Rs 5,000, we believe we have bought the entire jahaz (aircraft),” an airline official sarcastically adds. 
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Civil Aviation points out some positive changes this season. It claims “lesser flight diversions at New Delhi’s IGIA — in fact, a reduction of nearly 36 per cent despite longer duration of low visibility period this winter”.
Between December 1, 2014 and January 5 this year, officials say, even though the total duration of low-visibility period at IGIA increased and the airport witnessed closure due to zero visibility for almost 30 hours as against 15 hours during the corresponding period last winter, flight diversions were reduced from 71 to 45. Overall flight operations at the IGIA also increased during low-visibility period this winter by nearly 67 per cent from 2,808 aircraft movements (both take-off and landing) last winter to 4,683 in the current season.
This, they say, has been possible with better management of flight operations with airlines being asked to requisition more CAT-III B compliant aircraft to and from IGIA, along with an adequate number of CAT-III B trained pilots. Airline operators were also advised to reschedule flights of smaller non-CAT-III compliant aircraft between 10 am and 8 pm in case the visibility conditions were not favourable.
Consolation enough? Not really.

For Chandigarh, need ‘a beautiful day’ to land

• Chandigarh airport, which comes under the Ministry of Defence, at present has the most basic Instrument Landing System. “It is a ‘fauji’ ILS, which is not even certified. You require a beautiful day, a 2.6-km visibility to land there,” pilots explain.
• So far as the ILS at Ludhiana is concerned, it is “eyeball mark II” in pilots’ parlance — “ankhon se dekh ke land karo”. A better landing system in Chandigarh would not just smoothen civil but also defence operations to places like Leh and Thoise, they add.
• However, according to experts, airports like Chandigarh are “nowhere in the list of priorities of either of the civil authorities or the passengers”.
• “As much 70 to 80 per cent of civil air operations take place from metro cities. In fact, Chandigarh does not figure anywhere in the list of priorities of airlines, authorities and passengers,” says Brij Bhardwaj, an aviation expert.
  

 
Passengers wait for trains running late owing to fog. Officials say such delays will continue since technology to circumvent it is costly. 

‘Slow but safe’ is the rail way

It may come as a surprise but the Indian Railways hasn’t given advanced technology for fog management a real chance, though it has gone in for improvised signal visibility for the crew, like “Fog Safe and Fog Pass” devices, and a GPS-based system that shows the position of the approaching signal through audio and visual indication.
Rail operations are based on the signaling system. The driver functions according to the signal and for him, its visibility is important for any further movement. To indicate fog, a Visibility Test Object (VTO) is set up at least 180 metres from the starter signal of the station. If the station superintendent or master is unable to see the VTO clearly, fog is declared and advisories are put in place. A VTO could be any fixed structure at a station.

Two types of drills are followed once the fog is declared. An absolute system means that a train will run between the two stations only after it is has been electronically communicated that the previous train has departed. The train can achieve a maximum speed of 60 kmph.
At big stations like Delhi where there is more traffic, the automatic system is followed. Here the locomotives maintain a speed of around 30 kmph so that more trains can move between two signals.
Since visibility of a signal is important, the driver has to know that he is approaching it. For that, the Railways purchases around two lakh detonators (patakhas) costing around Rs 100 per piece. Just before the signal, a line marking is created where the linesman keeps three detonators one after the other.
Explains Shri Prakash, a former member of the Railway Board: “Trains move on the aspect of signal. If it is green, it means go full speed, yellow or double yellow means go under cautious speeds, while red means no movement. These signals should be visible for about a kilometre if a train is running at 100 kmph. During the fog, there are times when a driver cannot even see beyond 10 metres, which broadly means he cannot move even if your signal is green.”  
The reason drivers move slowly is that a train requires a braking distance of around 1 km, depending upon its weight and length. “The driver should get some indicator that there is a signal ahead and he should move at such a speed that he can come to a stop if the signal is red, which is why he is warned with the help of detonators,” says Shri Prakash.
Even if the driver is aware of the position of the signal through the GPS, he cannot go at a very high speed because of highly-intrusive Indian tracks.
If the distance between two signals is more, the driver can reach the maximum speed of 60 kmph and end up with a time loss of one to two hours. If the train is passing through an area where signals are located at a short distance, he has no option but to crawl at even 15 kmph, losing at times eight to 10 hours.

Approach elsewhere

European countries tackle fog with the help of the cab signaling system. Here, the signal aspect is replicated inside the locomotive. It is a railway safety system that communicates the track status information to the cab, or the driver’s compartment, where he can see the information continuously.
“Providing this facility means that all locomotives in that area should have the systems. It should also be available on the ground, so that the signals are transmitted. Putting the equipment together would require Rs 30-35 lakh per locomotive and another Rs 15-20 lakh per kilometre on the ground. You can calculate how much it would cost to provide a system for 1,000 km. For the time period it is required and the money involved, it is not just impractical but also irrational. I would first put a fence and provide safety,” says a senior Railways official.
Senior officers say the system being followed currently may be old but with the kind of resources available, it is effective and safe. “In Mumbai alone, 10 to 20 persons are run over every day.  I would make the tracks safe rather than cab signaling,” says the Railway official.
Shri Prakash agrees: “We have to spend money on safety issues and there can be no comprise on the introduction of the new technology which eliminates the human interaction.” Experts say Railways needs at least 50 per cent more of what it is allocated for infrastructure creation and safety,  “things more important than the cab signaling device”.

Geared up for foggy winter

• Intensified night inspection by officials
• Extra crew for trains during late runs
• Retro-reflective tape sigma mark on Over Head Equipment (OHE) structures prior to signals to pre-warn drivers
• Cleaning of porcelain OHE insulators in polluted zones to avoid flash-over in fog
• Anti-fog insulators in polluted zones 
• Upkeep of signaling systems during fog
• Catering stalls open throughout the day, no overcharging, claims Railways
• Helpline for disseminating information.