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• A novel, non-pilot scheme to avail Accelerated Trip (AT) signal using local measurements for the distance relays. • Method based on total relative reactance change – not requiring any extra hardware for implementation. • Fast operation of a non-pilot method comparable with permissive transfer trip signal delays. • Testing of methods in varying types of contingencies to ensure correct operation such as evolving high impedance fault and remote-end breaker arc re-striking. • Confirmation of the tests with relay data record-timing diagrams discussed in the protection subcommittee meeting, NRPC, India. Challenges about the accurate impedance measurement comply pessimistic setting of distance relay reach. Hence, internal, remote-end faults from either end of the connected power system's protected line section are cleared with a prolonged time delay. Although carrier communication-aided protection schemes can accelerate the relay operation, latency in data transmission and link failure hampers the reliability of communication-assisted TRIP schemes. The present article analyzes the adverse effects of the inadvertently long fault clearing time due to the contingent communication-assisted transfer trips. To overcome the challenges by minimizing fault clearing time, the paper proposes a simple yet effective method of monitoring the total relative reactance change seen by the relay to discriminate between internal and external faults to the protected line section and consequently issue of Accelerated Trip (AT) signal for internal faults without communication assistance. The method monitors the total relative change of reactance over the specified time window and compares the same with the threshold to discriminate between internal and external faults. In addition, a steady state difference between the apparent values of the measured reactance is used to improve the robustness of the proposed algorithm further. The method has shown robustness against a wide range of fault resistance and fault types. Moreover, extensive unique tests are carried out and reported such as AT issue stability during remote-end breaker arc re-ignition for internal faults, sudden change in fault resistance during the detection window, and the fault on mutually coupled parallel line section. The method issues AT signal in 70 ms from the point of fault inception, comparable with the permissive transfer trip signal delay. Moreover, the AT signal issue is independent of the fault MVA for the remote end, internal faults, and the mutual inductance due to coupled parallel lines. The timings for the fault inception to clearing process are referred from relay data records presented in the protection sub-committee meeting of the Northern Region Power Committee (NRPC), India. The modeling and simulations are carried out using PSCAD software and the algorithm is tested with MATLAB. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]