Highway Rail Grade Crossings

This synthesis will be of interest to state and local highway personnel who are responsible for the design, construction, and maintenance of road surfaces and to railroad personnel with similar responsibilities associated with highway-rail grade crossings. It will also be of interest to manufacturers and suppliers of pavement and track materials for crossings. It presents information on the current practices related to highway-rail grade crossing surfaces, including the design and selection of crossing surface materials. This report of the Transportation Research Board describes the various types of highway- rail crossing surfaces, and the issues related to design, operation, and maintenance. Design elements include intersection geometry; drainage; special users, such as bicyclists; and descriptions of failures and their causes. Information is presented on crossing material selection factors, including life-cycle costs and on state practices in selection. Funding issues are also discussed.

Presents a review of the current practices associated with the operation of traffic signals at intersections located near highway-rail grade crossings.

A comprehensive analysis and review was undertaken of available data and information applicable to the problem of improving safety at highway rail grade crossings. A probability model was developed for forecasting the probability of accident occurrence at crossings. The model allows the separate prediction of expected accidents which involve trains and accidents which do not involve trains but occur at the crossing.

HIGHWAY-RAIL GRADE CROSSING IDENTIFICATION AND PRIORITIZING MODEL DEVELOPMENT Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Identification and Prioritizing Model Development develops an optimization model and heuristic. This seminal work expertly allocates monetary resources between public highway-rail grade crossings in the State of Tennessee. Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Identification and Prioritizing Model Development applies particular countermeasures. These countermeasures aim to decrease the total number of severe to fatal road accidents with respect to budget available.

This handbook briefly describes how growth of railroads and highways resulted in a proliferation of grade crossings and then discusses the variety of methods developed to warn pedestrians and vehicles of approaching trains. It is aimed primarily at providing railroad, state and municipal personnel with information which can help in cooperative efforts to improve grade crossing safety and efficiency. The book describes conditions and requirements at crossing; facilitates understanding of the elements of crossing systems; provides a compendium of existing grade crossing technology; serves as a guideline to aid in implementing improvements to grade crossings; aids in understanding and applying new technology; and serves as a basic text for training programs.

"TRB's National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) Report 755: Comprehensive Costs of Highway-Rail Grade Crossing Crashes describes a process for estimating the costs of highway-rail grade crossing crashes. A spreadsheet-based tool to facilitate use of the cost estimation process is available online." --Publisher description.