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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

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.

Acknowledgements