Collisions at railway crossings are the most serious safety issue faced by the rail system in Australia, although the number of deaths and injuries is small compared to other road safety issues. The purpose of the report is to advise on the need for, the feasibility of, and the potential benefits from further research into train lighting and conspicuity, and its potential to deliver significant reduction in road trauma. In the period 1996-2000, it is estimated that approximately 36 crashes per year occurred at passive crossings throughout Australia. These crashes resulted in an average of four deaths and six serious injuries per year. The average annual cost of collisions at railway level crossings was estimated to be at least $24.8 million for all crossings, including $16.3 million for active crossings and $8.3 million for passive crossings. Since there are fewer locomotives (approximately 2300) than passive crossings (approximately 6000), and since locomotive lighting treatments are likely to cost less than even the low-budget active warning systems currently being trialed, treating locomotives appears to be an attractive option. However, there is presently insufficient research evidence to estimate the proportion of collisions at passive crossings that would be prevented by such treatments. Empirical studies of the effectiveness of auxiliary lighting treatments are reviewed. There is evidence to suggest that all auxiliary lighting treatments are effective and increase detectability or improve estimations of time to arrival compared to headlights alone. A study for the US Federal Railroad Administration showed that crossing lights were the most effective treatment. Studies have also shown that strobe lights can improve detection when added to locomotives previously equipped with headlights alone. However, a recent study for Western Australian Government Railways indicated that a single strobe light did not improve detection when added to locomotives already fitted with both headlights and crossing lights. If further research into improving locomotive conspicuity is judged to be worth pursuing, it is recommended that it should commence with careful modelling of the photometric properties of proposed conspicuity-enhancing treatments. Since field trials are very expensive and difficult to organise, they should only proceed once a solid case has been established that a treatment has a high probability of succeeding. The photometric modelling will probably have to be supplemented by photometric measurements and some tests with subjects using real-life visibility aids on a static locomotive to provide data for the modelling process, and to investigate issues which cannot be resolved theoretically, and to confirm the predictions of the models. Evaluation of the effectiveness of conspicuity treatments in terms of crash reductions will not be practical, due to the small number of crashes available for comparison, unless the proportion of crashes prevented by the treatment is exceptionally high. (Author/publisher)
Abstract