A Train Status Assistant for Indian Railways
This addresses the need for accurate train delay information for people and businesses in India, but it appears incremental as it applies existing methods to a specific domain.
The authors tackled the problem of predicting train delays in India by developing a conversation agent that informs users about train status and delays at upcoming stations, trained on past delay data from a subset of trains and generalizing to others.
Trains are part-and-parcel of every day lives in countries with large, diverse, multi-lingual population like India. Consequently, an assistant which can accurately predict and explain train delays will help people and businesses alike. We present a novel conversation agent which can engage with people about train status and inform them about its delay at in-line stations. It is trained on past delay data from a subset of trains and generalizes to others.