IRAS-New

This project is the successor to the Indian_Railways_Announcement_System built 5 years ago. It builds upon a personal project developed a few years earlier and has been significantly enhanced.

Features

• Two modes of operation:
  • Discord Bot: Plays railway-style announcements in Discord servers.
  • Console App: A standalone application for announcements.

History

This project originated as a Discord Bot designed to replicate Indian Railways announcements. Over time, after studying the detailed documentation provided by RDSO (Research Design and Standards Organization), it was expanded into a console-based application for broader use.

Dependencies

1. FFMpeg (Download from https://www.ffmpeg.org/)
2. eSpeak-NG
   • This dependency is only needed if you're going to run Discord App. (Not recommended)
3. Discord Bot Token:
   • This dependency is only needed if you're going to run Discord App. (Not recommended)

Running the Project

1. Install Dependencies:

   • Use Poetry to manage dependencies:

     poetry install

     If Poetry is not installed, it can be added via pip:

     pip install poetry

2. Activate the virtual environment:

   • Use poetry env activate to activate the virtual environment. If a venv doesn't exist, then Poetry will create one for you.

3. Start the Project:

   • For the Console App:

     python console.py

   • For the Discord Bot:

     python main.py

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Architecture

• main.py: Implements a priority-based announcements player for the Discord Bot.
• console.py: Implements a priority-based announcements player for standalone use.

Custom Libraries

Two custom libraries are included for specialized functionality:

1. espeak_ng:

   • Wraps the espeak_ng executable for text-to-speech functionality.
   • Requires the espeak_ng executable to be in the system path.

2. etrainlib:

   • Scrapes data from etrain.info using BeautifulSoup.
   • Provides APIs for simplified data access.

Implementation

Data Source

• Live station data is fetched from the etrain.info API via HTTP POST requests.

Key Processes

1. Data Scraping:

   • BeautifulSoup is used to parse HTML data embedded in JSON responses.
   • A custom request function ensures the payload mimics browser behavior to avoid blocking.
   • Captcha handling is managed separately (details omitted).

2. Parsing Logic:

   • Extracts tabular data into structured fields like train number, name, source, destination, timings, platform, etc.
   • Data is cleaned and processed for clarity:
     • Abbreviations (e.g., TPJ -> Tiruchirappalli Junction) are expanded.
     • Common terms (e.g., JN -> Junction) are replaced with full forms.

3. Priority Queues:

   • Announcements are managed using a priority queue.
   • High-priority events (e.g., "Train is arriving" or "Train is on platform") are announced before lower-priority events (e.g., "Scheduled to depart").

4. Audio Generation:

   • Google Text-to-Speech (GTTS) converts announcement text into audio in three languages.
   • A signature chime ("ting ting") is added to the beginning of all announcements.

5. Audio Playback:

   • Final audio files are queued and played:
     • Via speakers for the Console App.
     • On Discord servers for the Discord Bot.

Future Improvements

• Support for rescheduled, diverted, and canceled trains.
• Enhanced polling mechanism for optimized API calls based on train proximity.
• Improved batching of announcements to minimize redundancy.
• Support for late arriving trains.
• Platform-based announcements playback (partially implemented).
• Operator takeover functionality to allow manual control of announcements.
• Advanced error handling for network issues or incomplete data.
• Multi-station management for more complex scenarios.

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Acknowledgements

• Indian Railways
• RDSO Documentation
• etrain.info