Organization : Indian Railways
Service Name : FOIS Freight Operations Information System
Applicable States/UT: All India
Website : https://www.fois.indianrail.gov.in/
What is FOIS System?
Indian Railways (IR) carries nearly 1012 Million Tonnes of Freight in a year as reported from FOIS System in Year 2013-14.
Related / Similar Facility : Indian Railways Tatkal Scheme
Freight trains bring two thirds of the Indian Railway revenues and are referred to as the bread earners for the Railways. The major commodities carried by Indian Railways are Coal, Iron Ore, Foodgrains, Iron & Steel, Cement, Petroleum products, Fertilizer and Containerized Traffic. There are specialized wagons to handle the Transportation Needs of the different types of commodities.
Unlike passenger carrying trains, Freight trains do not run to a fixed schedule thus making Freight Operations a highly Information Intensive activity. Based on this information managers make Allocation Decisions continually to dynamically Optimize Utilization of resources like wagons, locomotives, crew and paths on the network. Real time information allows good decision making and thus ensures high levels of mobility within the system. This realisation has led to the development of Freight Operations Information System (FOIS).
Features of FOIS
FOIS – A Strategic Advantage to both IR and its customers. The implementation of the system is envisaged to eventually achieve the following:-
Extension of the current business practice of bulk movement in train load formation to piecemeal traffic to increase the market share by clubbing and moving together similar type of stock of “Hub & Spoke” arrangement.
Global tracking of consignments in real time whether in rakes or in individual wagons. The insight and pipeline of consignments would be seamlessly available for timely planning and just in time inventory management.
Facilitate acceptance of customer’s orders, billing and cash accountal from identified nodal customer centres which, may not necessarily be the handling terminals. These facilities could even get extended to customer’s premises and alongwith introduction of e- commerce benefit both by reducing the burden of logistics management.
FOIS comprises two major subsystems :
** Rake Management System (RMS) for handling the operational aspects of IR.
** Terminal Management System (TMS) for handling the commercial aspects of IR.
The other important subsystems for better Decision Making:
MIS Reporting, Rake Allotment/Allocation System (RAS), Terminal Pipeline Management System (TPMS)
FOIS provides improvement in existing business practices and consequently reduction in the operating costs while enhancing the quality of service. A full fledged Domestic Terminal Management System (DTMS) for CONCOR is already in place.
Thus FOIS provides:
** Convenience and Transparency to Customers
** Optimum Utilization of Resources
** Handling of Commercial and Operational aspects of Rail and Freight Movement
** Better Decision making tools
** Help for better logistics management.
Services:
Reporting/Monitoring enabled for:
** Position of Freight Trains in Computerized Territory, ETA/ETD at a station, Commodity wise flow for customers like Power Houses, Refineries, Fertilizers, Cement Plants, Steel Depots and public freight terminals -Attachment/Detachment of Rolling Stock -Wagons in yard, Locos in Shed, Detention -Loading/Unloading from different regions/locations.
** Freight Earnings, RRs, Invoices, Demurrage charges, Wharfage charges and other Local Charges.
** Balance Sheet, Apportionment, E-payments, Empty Haulage etc.
Managerial Reports generated on:
** Periodic Loading/Unloading, Detentions, Rolling Stock Availability, NTKM/GTKM, WTR, Outage etc.
** Comparative/Tredn analysis on different parameters.
** Interchanges, Forecasting
** Holding, EKM, HOR, Insight etc.
Decision Making tools:
** Rake Allocation/Allotment
** Terminal Congestion Determination etc.