The road user, the pedestrian, and me: Investigating the interactions, errors and escalating risks of users of fully protected level crossings

Abstract

Most railway level crossings in high-traffic road environments are actively protected and safest when exposure is taken into account, supporting the rail industry’s strategy to focus on upgrading passive crossings. However, collisions at these crossings account for two thirds of the collision costs at level crossings. These collisions may occur for a variety of reasons with anecdotal evidence assigning deliberate violations a key concern though there is little data to illustrate the size of the problem. The paper quantifies this to provide a more comprehensive and empirical understanding of road user interactions at active level crossings in a busy urban environment and shed light on a broader range of accident precursors. Two days of observation were conducted with large numbers of violations observed for both road vehicles and pedestrians. High levels of safety-related events were observed per activation of the crossing, and these events were often followed by safety-related events from following road users. The specific design of the level crossing and local road environment resulted in high levels of congestion for a number of reasons including large train traffic volumes, short stacking issues, limited options for pedestrians to cross, and activation vs. time-to-arrival synchronisation issues. These conditions attracted decision errors, pressures, and other ostensible issues which led to deliberate and unintended violations. This paper shows the need for development of interventions at urban level crossings targeting violations for all types of level crossing users to ensure level crossings can respond to the rapid changes in the transport environment.