New Approaches to Understanding and Preventing Level
Crossing Incidents Workshop
The CRC for Rail Innovation
commissioned a workshop of interested stakeholders to address
issues associated with Railway Level Crossing (RLX) Safety.
The workshop was conducted in Brisbane on 5 and 6 February
2009.
Participants
Thirty participants attended the
Workshop with strong representation from rail operators,
infrastructure owners, rail and road academics and road safety
officials. Relevant stakeholders with limited
representation included police and road engineers. There were
no participants from the road transport industry, motorists’
organisations, motorcyclists, cyclists and pedestrian
associations.
Objective
A key objective of the workshop was
to provide a recommended list of possible research projects and
ideas to the CRC and other agencies including Governments. It is
envisaged that these research ideas will contribute to the
reduction of crashes and injuries at RLX.
Outcomes
The following table lists the top
ten research project ideas as assessed by participants undertaking
an individual voting process at the end of the workshop.
The priority listing is based on
the number of high and medium votes recorded by participants for
each project. There is substantial detail about the nature and
direction of projects developed by participants in working groups
and this information appears in Appendix 6.
Top Ten
Research Priorities
Project Idea
|
Priority |
Number of High
Votes
|
Number of Medium
Votes
|
| Establish a National Incident Database |
1 |
21 |
1
|
| Establish a National Crash Database |
2 |
20
|
3 |
| Trial road vehicle driver response to a range of in-vehicle
warning systems to warn of approaching RLX* |
3 |
16 |
6
|
| Trial technology in vehicles to advise drivers of an
approaching train (in-vehicle ITS) |
4 |
14
|
8 |
| Trial Cameras on locomotives to collect information for
both crash and incident databases |
5 |
11 |
9 |
| Trial road vehicle driver response to a range of
different road based measures at RLX (includes red lights) |
6 |
11 |
7 |
| Establish how and why older drivers are overrepresented at RLX
crashes and the behaviour leading to this |
7 |
10 |
5 |
| Observational study of pedestrian behaviour at different
crossing types |
8 |
7 |
9 |
| Trial application of changes in speed limits approaching RLX
and driver response* |
9 |
6 |
4 |
| Establish an understanding of why a proportion of drivers drive
through RLX without being aware |
10 |
5 |
12
|
* Recommended to be combined
The full list of projects and voting record
is included in the body of the report, however all other projects
outside the top ten received a greater number of low priority
votes, or’ no’ votes, than high or medium priority
votes.
