Railway level crossings are amongst the most complex of road safety control systems, due to the conflicts between road vehicles and rail infrastructure, trains and train operations. Driver behaviour at railway crossings is the major collision factor. The main objective of the present paper was to evaluate the existing conventional warning devices in relation to driver behaviour. The common conventional warning devices in Australia are a stop sign (passive), flashing lights and a half boom-barrier with flashing lights (active). The data were collected using two approaches, namely: field video recordings at selected sites and a driving simulator in a laboratory. This paper describes and compares the driver response results from both the field survey and the driving simulator. The conclusion drawn is that different types of warning systems resulted in varying driver responses at crossings. The results showed that on average driver responses to passive crossings were poor when compared to active ones. The field results were consistent with the simulator results for the existing conventional warning devices and hence they may be used to calibrate the simulator for further evaluation of alternative warning systems.
Level crossings are amongst the most complex of road safety issues, due to the addition of rail infrastructure, trains and train operations. The differences in the operational characteristics of different warning devices together with varying crossing, traffic or/and train characteristics, cause different driver behaviour at crossings. This paper compares driver behaviour towards two novel warning devices (rumble strips and in-vehicle audio warning) with two conventional warning devices (flashing light and stop sign) at railway level crossings using microsimulation modelling. Two safety performance indicators directly related to collision risks, violation and time-to-collision, were adopted. Results indicated the active systems were more effective at reducing likely collisions compared to passive devices. With the combined application of driving simulation and traffic microsimulation modelling, traffic safety performance indicators for a level crossing can be estimated. From these, relative safety comparisons for the different traffic devices are derived, or even for absolute safety evaluation with proper calibration from field investigations.