ACP or Chain Pulling

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SUMMARY

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Suppose there are 10,000 trains on which ACP happens daily. We can assume approx 3 chain pullings per train. (We can’t consider trains in ECR,ER, NER where ACP is a nightmare to run trains).
An ACP takes 2-10 mins, 50 minutes(sometimes more in neutral section). So I am taking approx. 10 minutes as the avg time to correct ACP.

Lets look at this calculation: (DIRECT IMPACT)
10000(trains) x 3 (ACP per train per day) x 10 (minutes per ACP) = 3 LAKH MINUTES per day = 5000 Hours per day due to ACP as the DIRECT IMPACT, the INDIRECT IMPACT is the OTHER TRAINS impacted as well as the PATH LOST of ACP train and others.

Total DIRECT LOSS due to ACP in an year = 5000 (hours/day) x 365 = 1,825,000 Hours/Year
This above figure is equivalent to Seventy Six Thousand Days per year Direct Loss due to ACP after accounting for INDIRECT Losses the figure will be astronomical.

Hence, I believe that any solution in this regard is worth experimenting and if it reduces ACP by even 10% its worth it.

I believe if we implement the ways I am suggesting than it can reduced ACP by 10-30% on the Lower side and 50-70% on the upper side.The way we implement will decide the final results.

I have thought of funny and controversial solutions too and least bothered if they are rejected and discarded because sometimes only such solutions work, but due to some reasons I can’t mention them here.

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There has been lot of thought process behind every single step and it took me 30-45 mins to explain people the psychology behind each and every step.
Now since most people lack patience so I will divide this thread in different parts.

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There are many reasons for ACP or Chain Pulling as the public calls it, ranging from genuine need for some elderly to people boarding any train and then pulling chain at a location before station which is near to home.

There are situational chain pullings like for labour or office workers during certain peak hours. There are specific trains more prone to ACP. There is huge diversity in chain pulling events across the country. For some its the biggest nightmare in running trains and punctuality and also indirect impact on other trains and loss of path, while for some zones/divisions its not that big an issue.

Till now people analyse situation at a particular location/train and then take action and in many cases it did reduce the ACP Events. Now kindly look at below images to understand why those approaches won’t help much.

Now from the above images its clear that if we go at micro approach then it will take more than several decades to analyse and no human not even AI can solve all the scenario and things will only get complex.

Now, those who have met me knows very well that I don’t stay on one track, so lets get distracted again 😅 shall we 😆

This is an amazing books and I must thank the author a lot 😃

I am posting few highlighted screenshots from the book, for full context I will put screenshots below main post, though I request all those who are interested to get a hold of this book.

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So any Solution to reduce ACP or Chain Pulling has to be simple. I tried to identify and “TAG” people based on Genuine ACP & Non-Genuine ACP, here Genuine is the legal definition used by Railways. Because if we go into demographics and regional issues poverty etc then Genuine will have a different meaning.

The solution is not perfect, but I believe it will reduce ACP or Chain Pulling by 10-30% on Lower Side or 50-70% on the upper side. There are certain flaws and I had thought about “juggad solution for those” and came with a 5 step process. Though 3 steps were funny and bit controversial so dropped them.

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Steps Railways mostly take to reduce ACP or Chain Pulling:

Sensitisation Drive to sensitise public
Depute RPF to catch the culprit.
Deterrence and Threat : Legal offence liable for Jail and Penalty.

Issues wrt RPF catching the culprit:
At Station:
Its near to impossible to RPF to catch the culprit as he is inside a general coach mostly and when chain is pulled as its many people who run, so we don’t know who is the actual culprit.
Outside Station:
There is no RPF

Issues wrt Legal Threat of Jail and Penalty:
Again I am changing track and bringing an analogy: When some bad crime happens and there is only 1 person at the scene at the moment of crime we might attribute crime to him, when there are 4-5 people then we can use normal procedures to find the culprit among 4-5 people. But when its a mob then there is no culprit as it can’t be identified.

Similarly when many people run, remember most ACP happens in General/Sleeper coach.
When ACP happens at say station then there are say more than 100 people in General coach u can’t identify the person.
When ACP happens outside station and many people run to a colony or a temple then its a mob, no RPF is there, even if you had manpower (which will prove to be insufficient), how will you identify the culprit?

Secondly till you don’t catch the culprit the Legal Threat of Jail or Penalty doesn’t arise.

And for any Deterrence or Threat to work it has to be CREDIBLE and should be perceived as such by the culprit.

Hence the 2 basic steps out of 5 of this solution:

MARK the Culprit and destroy his ALPHA image (will explain later).
People catch the Culprit as they will be rewarded for it: So now the Threat to ALPHA and others is credible and the risk far outweigh the cost/threat. (There will be few unintended consequences of this and I have thought about those too and can solve them easily).

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Now I will be splitting the post and write the Hinglish version so as to properly explain the idea and every logic and how to do implementation. Few things I might not write here as those are the loopholes and way out and we can solve it but its better not to write out the loopholes here.

Also screenshots of the book for those who are interested in that conversation and its really worth it.

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Book Conversation: