Despite improvements that have reduced the number of highway-rail grade crossing incidents in the past 2 decades, evidence indicates that (a) railroad crossings remain a significant safety hazard, (b) the trends supporting the decline in incidents are unlikely to continue, and (c) solutions that reduce the risk of grade crossing incidents will continue to be costly. Although public funding currently is available for grade crossing enhancements, the funding level is periodically reset, a process whose outcome is ultimately determined by considering tradeoffs and competition with other categories of highway system enhancement. The persistence of grade crossing safety issues and the necessity of competing for everscarcer surface transportation funds suggest the need for refining methods for gauging the costs of highway-rail grade crossing crashes. Crashes between trains and road vehicles typically are more severe and more costly than highway crashes in general. Less than 1% of police-reported highway crashes involve fatalities, compared with roughly 10% of highway-rail crashes. In addition, the costs of highway-rail crashes can extend well beyond the usual costs of general highway crashes because of (a) damage to railroad equipment and infrastructure; (b) the potential disruption of rail passenger service and the logistics supply chain; and (c) the potential for very rare, catastrophic events, such as multi-passenger casualties or hazardous material (hazmat) spills with major environmental or human health impacts.
Comprehensive Costs of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Crashes
2013
119 pages
Report
Keine Angabe
Englisch
Examination of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Crashes over 10 Years in Seven Midwestern States
British Library Conference Proceedings | 2005
|Rail-Highway Grade Crossing Consolidation in Kansas
Transportation Research Record | 1998
|Rail-Highway Grade Crossing Consolidation in Kansas
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1998
|History of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Signals
British Library Conference Proceedings | 1999
|