Level crossings:
The state-of-the-art
12th International Level crossing Symposium and
International Railway Safety Conference: Joint session
Aidan Nelson
London, October 10th, 2012
1
This paper
 This paper was commissioned by the Rail
Safety and Standards Board (RSSB)
 It sets out the authors personal interpretation
of that which constitutes best practice in the
management of risk at level crossings
 It concludes that the state-of-the-art is a
composite of elements drawn from many
jurisdictions
 Suggests where you might look for ideas to
adopt in your own risk management
programmes
 May prompt others to offer further examples
of good practice
How do we measure level
crossing safety?
 Simplistically, the answer is we don’t all agree
on the metrics to use
 What’s more we don’t all capture data to the
same specification
 Differentiated approach to addressing
intentional death dimension
 Important to understand level crossing risk in
context of wider road and rail safety contexts
 Small proportion of road safety deaths
 Much larger component of train accident risk
So what is good performance?
 Broadly comparable data for 37 countries
 Countries self-selected based on ease of
accessing required data
 Level crossing fatalities per million population
 Highway fatalities per million population
 Fatalities per thousand level crossings
 Level crossing fatalities as a percentage of highway
fatalities
 Results are generally average of five years’ data
 Analysis will be repeated to include 2011 data
Better performance
Crossing
fatalities per
million
population
Highway
fatalities per
million
population
Fatalities per
thousand
crossings
Crossing
fatalities as a
% of highway
fatalities
1
United Kingdom
(0.16)
Netherlands
(39.69)
Canada (0.62)
Italy (0.20)
2
Ireland (0.18)
Sweden (42.41)
Ireland (0.74)
3
Italy (0.19)
United Kingdom
(42.70)
Sweden (0.90)
South Africa
(0.27)
Ireland (0.28)
4
Norway (0.20)
Switzerland
(46.63)
Switzerland
(0.95)
United Kingdom
(0.37)
5
Israel (0.27)
Norway (47.10)
Czech Republic
(1.32)
Norway (0.43)
6
Spain (0.32)
Israel (50.28)
United States
(1.43)
Bulgaria (0.50)
7
France (0.57)
Germany (54.23)
United Kingdom
(1.48)
Greece (0.64)
8
Germany (0.61)
Denmark (58.59)
Australia (1.57)
9
10
Bulgaria (0.67)
Canada (0.72)
Denmark (0.72)
Finland (60.11)
Ireland (64.07)
Italy (1.82)
France (1.94)
United States
(0.82)
France (0.82)
Serbia (0.82)
Worse performers
Crossing
fatalities per
million
population
Highway fatalities
per million
population
Fatalities per
thousand
crossings
Crossing fatalities
as a % of
highway fatalities
37
Croatia (6.00)
South Africa
(276.51)
India (66.77)
Slovenia (3.24)
36
Slovenia (3.45)
Lithuania (160.41)
South Africa
(31.96)
Austria (2.95)
35
34
33
Argentina (3.30) Latvia (154.99)
Hungary (2.96)
Greece (132.69)
Slovakia (2.78)
Romania (129.56)
Israel (20.83)
Croatia (17.26)
Portugal (13.60
Hungary (2.91)
Slovakia (2.88)
Czech Republic
(2.63)
32
31
Austria (2.31)
Estonia (2.24)
Poland (129.45)
United States
(121.14)
Lithuania (12.45)
Argentina (9.57)
Finland (2.60)
Argentina (2.51)
30
29
28
Lithuania (1.99)
India (1.93)
Latvia (1.87)
Estonia (117.82)
Slovenia (106.31)
Hungary (102.02)
Estonia (9.09)
Slovenia (7.51)
Romania (7.33)
Australia (2.46)
Netherlands (2.12)
India (1.97)
Measured performance
 Only two jurisdictions in “top ten” on all four
comparative metrics
 Only one jurisdiction in “bottom ten”
 Eight jurisdictions appear in both “top ten” and
“bottom ten”
 Low incidence of crossing fatalities per million
population increases intolerance of level crossing
accidents
 Low percentage of highway fatalities makes
engaging highway sector difficult
 Important to demonstrate continuous
improvement so far as is reasonably practicable
The Five Es








Enabling
Engineering
Education
Enforcement
Evaluation
Originated as the 3E Operation Lifesaver model
Expanded by Railway Safety / RSSB in UK
If not explicit, these elements are implicit
within most jurisdictions
Enabling frameworks
 Unified road and rail administrations level the
playing field
 Voluntary road-rail partnerships
 Documented road-rail interface agreements
 Single cathartic events can change the approach
quickly
 Specially funded national closure programmes
 Research, a good case for wider collaboration
 Sound risk models, used to inform structured
professional judgment
 Rail needs to take the lead
Engineering
 Grade separation appropriate to use, don’t overengineer
 “Sealed” crossings, an option sometimes ignored
 Driving down the cost of upgrades – wide
variation today
 Train detection, think laterally
 Not a stand-alone panacea
 But, must be able to demonstrate progress and
show sound judgment in addressing crossing
configuration / elimination to counter media
witch-hunts and regulatory intervention
Education
 Branded national programmes
 Lifesaver and Australasian foundation approaches
are good
 Publicly funded programmes can often get free
public service announcement broadcasts, where
privately funded programmes have to pay
 ILCAD is achieving great things already as can
national safety weeks
 Social media is increasingly important
 Distraction is an issue that cannot be ignored
 Good safety record at level crossings can cause
public funding to be redirected to address other
highway safety issues
Enforcement
 Joint initiatives work best
 Officer on the Train
 A crossing safety blitz can be a route for local / highway
police to address other issues
 Photo enforcement is an opportunity that too
many jurisdictions are missing
 Punishment to fit the crime requires distinction
between accidental and wilful misuse
 The catastrophic potential of a collision between
a train and a road vehicle must inform
sentencing
 There is a lot to do to raise penalties,
particularly for wilful misuse of level crossings
Evaluation
 A generally neglected area
 Effectiveness of engineered solutions needs to
be determined on a location specific and
programme basis
 A Broad purview needed when considering
efficacy of education programmes
 Education targeting users of specific crossings
needs to be evaluated too
 Demonstrating value-for-money is key to
future funding of engineering, education and
enforcement programmes
Where is the state-of-the art
to be found?
 Elements of best practice are widely distributed
 Mix and match what is already working elsewhere
 Avoid the “not invented here” syndrome
 Action taken after an accident is important, but it is
better to have addressed the risk before the
cathartic accident occurs
 Reduce risk only so far as is reasonably practicable
(SFAIRP)
 I’ll now explain my personal ideal of a
comprehensive level crossing risk reduction
programme
An ideal programme (1)
 Managing level crossing risk in a country with the best level
of road safety
 The Netherlands, Sweden and United Kingdom for example
 Unified road and rail administration applying the same
criteria to both modes
 Sweden and Finland stand out
 Having an enabling framework within which the rail sector is
prepared to take the lead in building partnerships
 Australia, The United Kingdom, Canada and United States for example
 A quality research programme
 Australia, Canada, United States and United Kingdom spring to mind
 Having access to a risk model to support decision making
 The United Kingdom, Ireland, Australia and Portugal for example
 Access to truly lower cost level crossing systems
An ideal programme (2)
 Strong government support and funding to allow grade
separation projects to proceed and significant numbers of
public highway crossings to be eliminated or upgraded
 Spain, Portugal and the United States for example
 A single problem solving toolkit used by all stakeholders
 The Swedish OLA approach stands out; Objective facts, solutions and
actions is the English translation
 Should be backed-up with interface agreements as used in Australia
 A national public education programme, committed to the
use of new media, targeting new risks as they emerge
 Australasian foundations, Operation Lifesaver where Estonia really stands
out
 Full use made of photo-enforcement and penalties that fit
the crime
 The United Kingdom and South Africa respectively
An ideal programme (3)
 Excellent data to inform evaluation
 A role for industry safety bodies – RSSB in the UK and RISSB in Australia
 A regulatory environment equally effective in targeting
improvements and remedial action in road and rail sectors
 An independent accident investigation body that looks at
the whole picture and doesn’t see level crossing accidents
as a rail only phenomena
 The same test applied to making recommendations for attention of railway
and highway interests
 Risk reduction only so far as is reasonably practicable
 The enthusiasm & passion generated through international
cooperation leading to improvements in my approach
 No more humbling experience of railways being pilloried for
failing to manage risk arising at level crossings properly
Contact
Aidan Nelson
Email:
aidannelson@comsafetypartmers.com
Telephone: +44 1904 448439
Mobile: +44 7939 546980