Rail-road crossing impacts: an international synthesis

ABSTRACT

Rail-road crossings generate a range of transport, economic, social and environmental impacts. While much research has focused on selected impacts such as safety, little consideration has been given to wider impacts. The aim of this research was to therefore develop a holistic understanding of the impacts of rail-road crossings (both at-grade and grade-separated) and to identify key gaps in knowledge in this field. An international synthesis of rail-road crossing impacts was developed through a detailed literature review, which revealed a total of 18 different types of impacts associated with rail-road crossings. The review found that most research to date has focused on quantifying transport and economic impacts, particularly safety and road vehicle delay, with little consideration given to social and environmental impacts. A number of research gaps have been identified which provide a clear agenda for future research. These gaps include the use of empirical evidence to support impact assessments, and the need to better understand the impacts of grade-separating rail-road crossings in terms of safety, travel time variability, land use, traffic flow, rail vehicle delay, disability access, and crime.

KEYWORDS:

• Rail-road crossing
• highway-rail crossing
• level crossing
• grade separation
• impact assessment

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the anonymous reviewers whose comments have helped to strengthen this paper. Adrian Wanasili and Frank De Santis from VicRoads are also acknowledged for their input, particularly with providing traffic data for a recent grade separation project in Melbourne, Australia.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 95th Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C, in January 2016. It was submitted for presentation only and had never been published in a research journal.