Page 46 - Occupational Health & Safety, March 2017

TRANSPORTATION SAFETY
How to Make Railroad Crossings Safer and Smarter
Smart crossing systems are adopting the latest in CCTV surveillance and image processing technology to visually inspect boom gate conditions, identify trapped objects, and monitor objects’ movements in real time. BY CHARLES Z.K. CHEN AND HARRY HSIAO
High-traffic railroad crossings remain a safety concern despite the widespread use of ac- tive warning systems to clear the tracks for oncoming trains. Although most train-
and-car collisions are highly preventable, both real- time and historical data about railway assets, wayside equipment, and warning devices are required to help car drivers and pedestrians, railway operators, and local authorities avoid future accidents and perform root cause analysis in the wake of a crash. Conse- quently, transportation and safety professionals are increasingly deploying advanced data acquisition and IP video surveillance technologies to provide more complete and accurate information to make existing railroad crossings smarter and safer.
Overview
Modern railroad crossings have come a long way from the early days of human railway employees waving red flags and shining lanterns to clear railroad tracks of ve- hicles and pedestrian traffic for oncoming trains. As is still the case today, 19th century railways were deeply concerned with preventing accidents and protecting assets. Responding to these concerns, railroads began to implement manual, and eventually electrical, cross- ing barriers to block road traffic from the rail tracks. Although clear, simple signage may be sufficient for railroad crossings in sparsely inhabited regions, high- traffic intersections today often feature active warning systems, which include electrical boom gates, flashing lights, and warning bells that are triggered when an approaching train trips a nearby track circuit.
However, despite these modern safeguards, rail- road crossings continue to pose a serious safety issue around the world. In fact, crossing accidents claim the lives of roughly 300 Americans1 and 400 Europeans2 every year. Besides the tragic loss of human life, rail- road crossing accidents cause expensive asset damage (e.g., train cars, rail tracks, crossing equipment, etc.), time-consuming traffic jams, and inconvenient ser- vice suspensions. More so than other railway failures, such as those related to railroad switches, railroad crossing accidents tend to be attributed to human er- ror and violations of traffic regulations. For example, 98 percent of collisions between a train and a vehicle or pedestrian at railroad crossings in France can be at-
tributed to carelessness.5 Although human error may seem like an impossible obstacle, it is one cause of ac- cidents that can be reduced by equipping people with the right information at the right time.
At first, removing railroad crossings through grade separation may appear to be an obvious simple solution to this international safety concern, espe- cially because transportation and safety profession- als generally agree that grade separation would lead to freer-flowing traffic and fewer accidents. However, grade-separated junctions—comprised of bridges or tunnels at different elevations—are not only space- intensive projects requiring significant engineering effort, but also are very expensive and time consum- ing to construct. If a particular crossing is shown to be exceptionally dangerous, then a major infrastruc- ture overhaul would, of course, be warranted. On the other hand, the economic and social costs of acquir- ing adjacent land, displacing local residents and busi- nesses, and disrupting existing road and rail traffic of removing a normally safe crossing may actually out- weigh the benefits. As a result, many countries have been investigating “smarter” ways to improve existing railroad crossing warning systems by implementing advanced communication and control technologies to prevent accidents.
How to Build a Smarter Crossing
Similar to how physicians rely on medical histories and test results to diagnose a patient’s ailments and prescribe treatment, transportation safety profes- sionals need to have both historical and real-time information about the equipment and environmental conditions at a particular crossing in order to deter- mine the cause of past accidents and prevent future accidents from happening. In this light, removing a railroad crossing would be analogous to performing invasive surgery or amputation, risky procedures that should only be undertaken following a careful cost- benefit analysis. Likewise, transportation profession- als need to have all relevant data to conduct thorough risk evaluations before proceeding with expensive and space-intensive grade separation projects. More specifically, an effective “smart” crossing will need to be designed to provide data accuracy for accident prevention as well as data completeness for accident analysis in the event of a collision.
Data Accuracy for Accident Prevention
Active warning systems for railroad crossings have traditionally been train-oriented and geared more to- ward protecting railway assets than helping vehicles and pedestrians make better split-second decisions. Although protecting and monitoring the condition of railway assets remain crucial objectives in ensuring
42 Occupational Health & Safety | MARCH 2017
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