Why grade crossings are a critical consideration in rail planning
CPCS would like to see better and safer grade crossings in all rail plans worldwide to further reduce rail collisions and fatalities.
The matter is serious: Each year, over 2,000 rail collisions and 200 fatalities occur at US grade crossings alone—that’s roughly one crash every 4.5 hours. CPCS argues these often-overlooked intersections are critical to improving safety, efficiency, and protecting business reputations.
In this article:
- Grade crossing explained
- CPCS promotes grade crossings in rail planning
- Why grade crossings are important
- Multifaceted approach to grade crossings
- Why grade crossings matter now
Key points
- Safer grade crossings: With numerous rail systems undergoing improvements or expansions, there’s an unequivocal need to re-evaluate safety at grade crossings.
- Making better decisions: CPCS rail advisors systematically include grade crossings and integrate requirements in rail plans.
- Several benefits: Examining grade crossings can help reduce and eliminate risks, increase safety, unlock the optimization of train schedules, reduce costs, and more.
Grade crossing explained
What is a grade crossing? Also called level crossings, a grade crossing is where a road, path or pedestrian route intersects with a railway track at the same level, allowing vehicles, pedestrians, or cyclists to pass over the tracks.
What the grade crossing data reveals: According to US Federal Railroad Administration data, 2,190 collisions occurred at public and private grade crossings in 2023, equating to a collision every 4.5 hours.
The statistics for both total incidents and total fatalities have remained on a slowly worsening trend since 2010. Crossing safety remains a top priority across North America, and efforts at both state and federal levels are dedicated to improving crossing safety. Numerous coordinated initiatives, supported by investments and collaborative partnerships among railroads, state Departments of Transportation (DOT), and federal agencies, are continuously enhancing the safety and efficiency of rail crossings.
State DOTs and federal agencies have implemented advanced safety programs, including modern signaling systems, comprehensive maintenance protocols, and real-time monitoring technologies, to mitigate risks at rail crossings.
CPCS promotes grade crossings in rail planning
CPCS considers grade crossings essential in all railway plans.
“Grade crossings are fully integrated in our approach to railway planning,” says Mark Leving, a CPCS rail specialist with over 45 years of experience in the rail industry.
From the outset, CPCS includes grade crossings both for the physical build-out, speed profiles and desired service levels and road traffic usage alongside operational constraints and scheduling.
“This is because the risk profile of grade crossings is interdependent with the number of trains that you operate, the level of road/pedestrian use and the configuration of the railway infrastructure,” says the CPCS rail specialist.
“Integrating grade crossings into our process allows us to identify if there’s a problem earlier on,” says Mark. By providing this information to clients, CPCS ensures that no stone is left unturned and that clients are left with the full picture in a rail plan, which promotes better and more informed decisions with no surprises.
Why grade crossings are important
Safety: Collisions at grade crossings can be deadly. They’re a significant safety risk to vehicle operators, pedestrians, cyclists, and more.
Greater care and foresight in considering grade crossings and eliminating risks would lower rates of injury and loss of life. It also ensures that the corporate reputations of rail companies are better protected. Improved Grade crossing safety is good for business.
“There’s a duty to eliminate risks that are reasonably foreseeable,” says Mark.
“For example, we know people will try to drive around barriers at grade crossings. As such, adding paint or signage to discourage is not an adequate solution to eliminate this risk. Better, more informed approaches can not only maximize the extent of risk elimination but also significantly improve safety and performance.”
Money and resources: Failure to integrate grade crossing requirements at the outset of any project injects uncertainty and risk to that project, because the requirements of those crossings are overlooked. It’s more cost and timescale efficient to any project that these requirements are considered transparently from the start.
This ensures the project will be feasible once grade crossings are factored in. For example, the expected outcomes of some projects to operate enhanced service levels at higher speeds, have been severely compromised on completion due to the increased incidence and accident rate at grade crossings. This has resulted in extensive time and on-cost being incurred in order to maintain rail operations. Often, the investment has failed to deliver the desired outcomes.
In the long-term, removing risks at grade crossings saves money and allows for smoother rail operations.
When a collision occurs, it can damage the train(s), involved tracks, and other railway infrastructure such as signalling and overhead contact systems that are costly to repair. Also, other trains on the same route will be heavily delayed, causing slower journeys and dissatisfied riders, and thus impacting business.
Optimizing train schedules and increasing capacity: Grade crossings can be better optimized to accommodate enhanced train schedules. Counterintuitively, reducing maximum permissible train speeds and the consequent train control (signalization) design parameters can increase capacity and save time. In some circumstances, listing a slower speed in mandatory operational documentation can enable track capacity to be increased.
For instance, if there are two grade crossings within a mile of each other, and all trains stop at an intermediate multitracked station located between the two crossings, the maximum attainable train speed in that area may only be 75 miles per hour (mph) or 120 km/h.
In this circumstance, retaining a higher track speed capability (e.g., 90 mph or 145 km/h) only serves to limit track capacity because of extended braking distances having to be incorporated into the fundamental design parameters.
Multifaceted approach to grade crossings
There are two things to consider when incorporating grade crossings to a rail plan:
- How does the schedule planning impact the grade crossing in terms of its risk profile?
- How do you upgrade or remove the grade crossing to eliminate risks?
To obtain the most benefits possible from grade crossing analysis, it’s important to consider methods of eliminating risks rather than mitigating risks.
Equipped with global rail expertise, CPCS integrates grade crossings throughout a project including risk modelling using a proven European risk model with a track record of success in both identifying levels of risk and in significantly lowering them to more acceptable levels that are as low as reasonably achievable.
CPCS uses international best practices and proven technology to identify when there’s something on the track and ensure intervention occurs before any train reaches a crossing.
We also identify lower-cost grade separation options and help organizations justify crossing closures to wider stakeholders including affected municipalities.
Our analyses and approach optimize available risk mitigation and elimination options to provide the best possible reduction in fatalities and injuries to a level that is as low as reasonably achievable within available budgets. The supporting analyses also include the use of road traffic simulation in multiple test scenarios to support desired approaches to risk elimination.
Why grade crossings matter now
Railway infrastructure in many places requires modernizing to meet societal expectations and demands. Populations are growing and this calls for more, better, faster, and more frequent transit systems.
The likelihood of grade crossing accidents is interdependent with the number of trains in service, tracks in use, and usage by vehicles and pedestrians. It is therefore important to look at grade crossings as an integral part of any project when making these big upfront changes.
It’s also best to uncover problems as early on as possible to avoid running into costly, embarrassing or reputationally damaging issues, among others, after the completion of a project or plan.
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