The Minnesota Department of Transportation’s (MnDOT) Office of Freight and Commercial Vehicles Operations (OFCVO), Rail Administration Section monitors the safety performance of more than 4,000 rail grade crossings along Minnesota’s public road system and develops the Department’s Railroad- Highway Grade Crossing Safety Improvement Program. A total of 445 vehicle-train crashes at the public rail grade crossings occurred within the 10-year period from 2004 through 2013. Of these crashes, 52 involved fatalities and another 129 involved injuries. The crash numbers produce a density of fatal plus injury crashes (those involving a fatality or injuries) of 0.004 per grade crossing per year. This comparatively low density of fatal plus injury crashes combined with nearly 91 percent of grade crossings experienced NO crashes during the study period points to two key issues: Vehicle-train collisions are rare, representing less than 0.06 percent of all crashes and around 1 percent of fatalities, and widely scattered across the state system of roadways. The probability of occupants in any vehicle crash with a train being fatally injured is more than 20 times greater than other types of traffic-related crashes across Minnesota. Approximately 0.5 percent of all traffic crashes in Minnesota result in a fatality; whereas 12 percent of vehicle-train collisions result in a fatality. To identify priority candidates for safety investment, Rail Administration staff currently use a pair of crash prediction models. These models consider crash history and a variety of crossing geometry, train and vehicle exposure factors to identify priority candidates for safety investments. However, Minnesota’s crash data raised concern among staff regarding whether or not the models place too high a priority on prior crash history. In addition, the most common type of safety strategy implemented at priority grade crossings is to install an active control device, which is defined by CH2M HILL, Inc. as gates and/or signals, or install a STOP sign at low-volume crossings (passive control). An overview of crashes at rail grade crossings indicates that almost one-third of crashes involving an injury or fatality occur at crossings with active devices and more than one-half of fatal plus injury crashes at crossings with passive control occurred at locations with STOP signs. These concerns have generated a desire among Rail Administration staff to gain a better understanding of rail grade crossing safety in Minnesota. A better understanding includes investigating a potential new approach to developing rail grade crossing safety projects by identifying candidate crossings for safety investment and selecting effective safety strategies. Key topics of this assessment include better documentation of crash details (contributing factors and driver behaviors) and crossing characteristics correlated with sites that have a history of crashes (road system and rail system). There is a low density of crashes, widely scattered locations, and an extraordinarily few number of locations with multiple fatal plus injury crashes. MnDOT’s Highway Safety Improvement Program managers developed a new analytical technique for evaluating systems with low-crash densities and a widely distributed pattern of fatal plus injury crashes. This technique has been successfully applied to roadway segments and intersections on state and county highway systems in Minnesota. The success of this technique is defined by the ability to generate prioritized lists of facilities based on the risk of fatal plus injury crashes and develop safety projects at high-priority candidate locations. Given the similarity between fatal plus injury crashes at rail grade crossings and those at intersections across the state and the concerns about safety project development, key tasks to be accomplished with this study include: Conduct an analysis of Minnesota’s public rail grade crossings to identify potential risk factors (roadway, rail, and traffic characteristics) that appear over-represented at the grade crossings with fatal plus injury crashes. Conduct a systemic analysis of grade crossings using identified risk factors. Produce a prioritized list of active- and passive-controlled crossings and compare the list to results from the crash prediction models currently in use. Evaluate the current approach to safety project development and the focus on installing signals and gates at high-volume locations and upgrading to STOP signs at low-volume locations and consider ways to increase the effectiveness of the rail safety program. Sections of this report include: Section 1 – Literature Review Section 2 – Grade Crossing Assessment, an assessment of Minnesota’s 4,000 plus public rail grade crossings (crashes analysis) Section 3 – Grade Crossing Characteristics Section 4 – Suggested Risk Factors, characteristics that appear to be over-represented at the few crossings with fatal plus injury crashes Section 5 – Results, results of the application of the suggested risk factors to the public rail grade crossings Section 6 – Conclusion Section 7 – Next Steps Section 8 – References. (Author/publisher)
Samenvatting