New Delhi – Indian Railways does not subject its drivers to sleep test like they should in any civilized country. Instead, we read news often about how real drivers are worked overtime and double shift if necessary, to keep trains running. They moved 25 million passengers daily. Compare now the Indian rail scenario with national transport safety board chairman in Washington recently.
He blamed three recent real accidents in New York metropolitan area with rail drivers fatigue. All three drivers had been diagnosed with sleep apnea that causes fatigue and sleepiness in wake up stage. Drivers were suspended. Sleep apnea is not a curable disease.
The chairman Robert L Samat was emphatic, “The public deserves alert operators. That is not too much to ask”. All three accidents involve trains colliding with headlong crash into parked trains. Board Medical member Dr. Webster said a sleep disorder Apnea test would have avoided accidents and avoided millions of dollars in loss, and needlessly lost lives.
In India, rail accidents become political football. Maybe someone is listening. Presently, locomotive pilot gets 7 medical tests – vision, hearing, chest x-ray, ECG, diabetes, blood pressure and color blindness.
There is no mention of sleep tests. Our Railway Ministry is in sleep itself for last 70 years. Indian citizens are not living under Colonial rules. Indian life matters. Railway must require each Loco pilot to go through sleep test.
There are 82,000 sanctioned post of loco pilots and 60,000 drivers are working covering 65,000 km of total Railway routes.
The best we know about Indian locomotive pilot sleep test is a video game patented by an ITI-Kharagpur professor Aurobinda Routray. Railways ministry had shown interest in the game according to the Indian Express report in December 2017. It’s camera sends signals from drivers facial expressions.
But it is primitive compared to sleep apnea test. Sleep test is a six to eight hour test in a clinical setting. Patient is fixed with 30 electrodes to different parts of the body responding to and recording with a computer about patterns of body. Thi s is one finds out if he is diagnosed with apnea problem.
Our Railway Ministry must wake up to live in the 21st century. It can profit so much with so little investment here
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