Abstract
This study was designed to investigate how drivers assess safety issues at passive railway-road level crossings. The study was limited to traditional and relatively inexpensive safety measures. Fifty-six car and van drivers were interviewed after passive level crossings with low traffic volume. Both key requirements of safe behaviour (i.e. decrease of speed and looking for trains) were indicated by 36-71% of drivers depending on the classification of responses. This result suggests that a substantial percentage of drivers have no proper concept of safe behaviour at level crossings. Another important result was that drivers found the crossing of main roads to be more difficult than crossing passive railway-road level crossings — despite the fact that they considered the latter to be more dangerous. This suggests that the drivers estimated the crash risk at railway-road level crossings to be relatively low, although they know that it is dangerous in general. Furthermore, the drivers suggested that the conspicuity of level crossings could be improved by increasing lateral visibility early enough and with advance warning signs. The drivers also suggested that caution could be increased with the use of STOP signs, improving the visibility of road signs and increasing the lateral visibility of tracks. The results suggest that there are several potential safety measures that could support drivers.
Highlights
In Finland, the annual number of railway-road crashes has recently been 40-60 with 5-10 fatalities [1]
Both key requirements of safe behaviour were indicated by 36-71% of drivers depending on the classification of responses
The results showed that both key requirements of safe behaviour were indicated by 36-71% of drivers depending on the classification of responses
Summary
In Finland, the annual number of railway-road crashes has recently been 40-60 with 5-10 fatalities [1]. Given that those figures represent less than 1% of all police-reported road crashes and 1-3% of all road fatalities, one could assess that these figures are relatively low. The majority of passive railway-road level crossings are located on roads with low traffic volume (typically less than 20 vehicles per day) and drivers are usually familiar with those crossings. This is the case in Finland and in many other countries as well [2,3,4]
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