Highlights A “traverse” is the passage over a level crossing by a road user. New data on traverses in Britain are used to give fatality rates per traverse. Fatality rates for pedestrians are ten times higher than for road vehicle users. Fatality rates at passive crossings are 100 times higher than at controlled crossings. The valuation of delays and of fatalities at active crossings are compared.
Abstract This paper investigates relationships between traverses, delays and fatalities to road users at railway level crossings in Great Britain. A ‘traverse’ means a passage across a level crossing by a road user, who may be a pedestrian, cyclist, or occupant of a road vehicle. The paper finds that the road users with the highest fatality rate per traverse are pedestrians at passive crossings. Their rate is about three orders of magnitude higher than that of users with the lowest risk, who are road vehicle occupants at railway-controlled crossings. The paper considers the choice between automatic and railway-controlled crossings on public roads. Railway-controlled crossings are widely used in Britain. They are about one order of magnitude safer than automatic crossings, but they impose greater delays on users. A formula is developed to give the overall delay to road users at either type of crossing in terms of the numbers of road users and trains per day, and in terms of the length of time that the crossing must be closed to the road to allow the passage of one train. It is found that automatic level crossings cause substantially less delay than railway-controlled level crossings. The official monetary values of road user delay and of preventing a fatality were used to estimate the valuations of delays and fatalities at hypothetical but representative automatic and railway-controlled crossings. These valuations were then used to explore the effect of replacing representative railway-controlled with automatic crossings or vice-versa. It is found that the valuation of the reduced delays from adopting automatic crossings typically outweighs the valuation of the losses from the increased casualties. However, in practice Britain has chosen to retain a large number of railway-controlled crossings, which implies accepting the delays in return for a good level crossing safety record. Finally, an analysis is carried out to determine the additional risk of typical car and walk journeys that involve traversing a level crossing compared with similar journeys that do not. It is found that the additional risk is small for motor vehicle journeys, but substantial for walk journeys.
Traverses, delays and fatalities at railway level crossings in Great Britain
Accident Analysis and Prevention ; 129 ; 66-75
2019-05-06
10 pages
Article (Journal)
Electronic Resource
English
AHB , automatic half barrier (level crossing) , ALCRM , All Level Crossing Risk Model , ASPR , Annual Safety Performance Report , CCTV , Closed circuit television , CSI , Common Safety Indicator , ERA , European Union Agency for Railways , EU , European Union , GB , Great Britain: England, Wales and Scotland , HSE , Health and Safety Executive , LC , Level Crossing , MCB , Manually-controlled barrier (level crossing) , NR , Network Rail (Infrastructure Manager) , NTS , National Travel Survey , ORR , Office of Rail and Road or (previously) Office of Rail Regulation , ORV , Occupants of road vehicles , RoE , Rest of Europe: EU28 plus Norway plus Switzerland minus UK , RSSB , Rail Safety and Standards Board , UK , United Kingdom: Great Britain and Northern Ireland , Railways , Safety , Accidents , Fatalities , Level crossings , Road users
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Engineering Index Backfile | 1930
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